PR 6003 
.173 fl7 
1911 
Copy 



. The 
Adventure 



Henry Bryan Binns 




Class _TRiJLL^ 
Book .2 y^A 7 



Copyright N" 



10 



JSU 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



The Adventure 



By the same Writer 

The Great Companions 1908 

The Wanderer and other Poems 19 10 

A Life of Walt Whitman 1905 

Abraham Lincoln 1907 



The Adventure 

A Romantic Variation 
on a Homeric Theme 
Henry Bryan Binns 



** Notre Episode de Kirk^, au pays de Feronia la lib^ratrice, est, avant tout, 
rAfiFranchissement." Victor Berard, 



New York: B. W. Huebsch. 

London: A. C. Fifield. 

igii 



T 






Copyright, 191 i 

BY 

HENRY BRYAN BINNS 

All acting and other rights reserved. 



©GID 23412 



TO YOU 

IN THE WES'l' 
WHO MAKE 
THE ADVENTURE 
YOURS 



CIRCE 

I tell of Her that is the mystery 

Whose name none knoweth. Circe was She called 

Long syne, and still the old name beckons Her, 

Till, at its hail, shines, as through sea-water 

With a wavering brightness, her bewildering smile. 

She is the mystery on whose vague sea 

Life sinks, thought perishes, the will lets go 

In a last gasp of bubbles all its breath. 

She is the mystery, voyaging on whose vastness, 

Man's thought yet farther ranges, till his will 

Unfurls the eagle-wings of Liberty. 

The provocation, the supreme occasion 

For the adventure of his faith, is She. 



NOTE 

Circe's song of Man the Piper was suggested by 
Mr. G. R. S. Mead's rendering, in his Thrice Greatest 
Hermes, of a passage from Hippolytus : and the design 
for Circe's weaving in Act III by the reproduction of a 
lekythos at Berlin, in Miss Harrison's Myths of the 
Odyssey. 



ARGUMENT 

Returning after the fall of Troy to his remote Ith- 
aca, Ulysses incurs the curse of the sea-god, so that he 
is thwarted in his homeward course. In his wanderings 
he comes at length to Circe's sacred Island, somewhere 
in the heart of the sea. Here, after being proved by 
the enchantress, he sets forth again with new heart 
on his journey. Resolute of purpose, and assisted by a 
certain divine humour, he seems now about to win, 
as the first-fruits of his intercourse with Circe, some 
fresh freedom for the Race. 



The Scene of the play is a remote volcanic island in 
the central seas, known to travellers as the Isle Perilous. 

The Persons of the Play are: 

Circe, Lady of the Isle Perilous and priestess of an 
ancient shrine therein : 

Her Four Maidens — Euryale, Pyrrha, Harpalyce, 
and Syrinx — the occult powers of air, fire, earth, and 
water, here taking visible shape : 

A witch and Circe's panther : 

Ulysses, a wanderer in quest of Freedom: 

His Cousin, Eurylochus, who is captain over a party 
detached for exploration from Ulysses' company : 

His Herald, Lieutenant, Piper, Wine-Carrier, and 
others of the party: 

Moly, a young mermaiden, and an oak-haunting 
oracle, Axor: 

The remaining Companions of Ulysses. 

Acts I to IV take place in the afternoon and even- 
ing ; Act V on the morning after. 



The Adventure 



Act I 
The Enchanted Woods 

A shaded plat of green before a pool. Behind it, on 
the left, rises a roeky slope — a great gnarled ilex 
{Axor's Oak) overhanging, its roots in the crevices. 
The woods thicken on the left. Descending through 
them, runs a path which crosses the plat, and proceeds, 
on the right, to traverse the sun-Hooded marsh-lands, 
tozvard a mountain promontory which plunges into the 
violet sea. The pool is an artificial basin, fed from a 
mouth-piece in the rock above, under zvhich is a shelf 
from zvhich the water splashes; a wide marble rim 
runs about it. 

It is a sultry afternoon: heavy white, towering 
clouds hang in a copper-coloured sky. 

Two of Circe's Four Maidens, lightly clad in silver- 
spangled grey and gold-spangled smoke-grey, their 
skirts kilted to their knees, are at the pool zvith their 
pitchers: Euryale, bare-footed on the green, propped 
on her elbozvs ; Pyrrha, bathing her arms luxuriously 
as she sits on the edge of the pool. 



2 The Adventure 

When the Third and Fourth Maidens, Harpalyce and 
Syrinx, enter, they are in similar garb, green-grey and 
blue-grey, and carry respectively a bundle of sticks 
and a basket of fishes. 
1st Maiden: 

Slow-footed, backward-turning as they go, 
Expectant, and reluctant and delaying. 
Morning and noon and now the afternoon 
Lag going over. 
2nd Maiden: 

Mischief is afoot; 
Through the hot stillness stealing, it draws nigh: 
Each hour is yet more conscious than the last 
How close it draws ; and yet there is no sign, 
i^^ Maiden: 

Ere Circe came, singing her Eastern songs, 
These ominous days that come like meteors 
From who knows whence, or wherefore, save it be 
Portending change — were strangers to our isle. 
Into the calm procession of our years 
She brought another movement, mastering 
Unto her restless soul the elements, 
And we, the Maidens of the elements, 
Made her our Lady. This is Circe's weather. 
2nd Maiden: 

And foreign to us still — and still a stranger ; 
Its alien lips speak not, nor leaf nor bird 
Hath any word of it : — the hour is mum. 
1st Maiden: 

But here is news that comes a-running! 
(Enter simultaneously on right and left the Third and 
Fourth Maidens.) 



The Enchanted Woods 3 

Nay, 
How eager must you be whose feet defy 
This heavy, sullen, and reluctant hour ! 
4th Maiden: 

I have brought the sea-spoil up as Circe bade. 
(She drops the fish she zvas carrying in a basket on 
her head, and comes to the pool side.) 

1st Maiden: 

Have you no news ? 
4th Maiden: 

Sister, my lips are dry 
And will not utter it ! 
(The First Maiden gives her a draught from her 

pitcher.) 
2nd Maiden: 

Harpalyce, 
You too have gathered somewhere in the woods 
Tidings that load your brow? 
^rd Maiden: 

O cruel, cruel! 
The wood is full of wrath ! At midnight, here 
By this our pool, under the sacred oak 
Whose over-stretching presence might not save him, 
My dusky one o' the woods, pool-eyed, oak-antlered, 
King of the creatures of the enchanted forest — 
How can I tell it? — murdered, dragged away, 
O bloodily trailed adown the sea-track yonder — 
See ! see ! — for here his blood was all out-spilled 
By the foul spear-thrust — and his royal head, 
Let drag along the dust, beat here and here 
Against the rocks in passing ! 



4 The Adventure 

2nd Maiden: 

May it not be 
That this was some mad panther-fit of him 
Our Lady hath for shadow? 
4th Maiden: 

Nay, but hark ! 
For I too have a tale that rhymes with hers, 
And 'tis an ugly token, sisters ! Black, 
Long-bodied, and with cheeks vermilion 
It lies below the caves on the white strand — 
A naked tree, and as with frantic roots 
It lashed the water, its bleak head held up 
A sheeted foliage to ensnare the gale. 
Thus, then, by night the monster came, and spawned 
Upon my silver beaches. Its black brood 
Already are begun to smirch and foul 
The borders of our island : in an hour 
Even these dark enchanted woods will yell 
With ribaldry and ravage, and ourselves, 
Sisters, become the butts of their desire! 
^rd Maiden: 

Our holy isle is nothing but a magnet 
To draw these monsters hither! There's a Power 
Dwells in our midst, that now employs us all 
Wantonlv for her pleasure. What are we. 
Sisters, that she should bait her vermin-traps 
And snarl her prey with us? And she, what is she? 
1st Maiden: 

The Priestess of the Shrine, Harpalyce. And these, 
Howso they shout, once they are gone up thither 
The ancient magic shall o'ermaster them. 
See you not, moving nigh you in the grass, 



The Enchanted Woods 

The snake of the pool? 
2nd Maiden: 

The snake of the pool? 
(A loud hiss.) 

Aha ! The song of the snake ! 
4th Maiden: 

'Twas Circe taught it us against sea-comers. 
Circe that came from the sea! 
The Maidens sing, and circle, dancing, as they sing. 

Hist ! who goes there ! 
Nay you — whoever you are, 
For your own sake, beware, 
And to our singing list. 

What is't ? — A snare 
In the flowers — a snake 
Ready coiled in his lair; 
And not very far 
From there where you stand 
*Mid the hours of your dreaming, 
Is the magical hand 
Of Circe, out-gleaming — 
Of Circe — beware ! 
For your own soul's sake! 

Hist! who comes venturing 

Here through the flowers to Circe? 

He is awake, his eyes are not dim: 

He is warned of the Snake what to fear : 

Hist! yet he ventures a-near! 

Do with him then as ye list! 

Dance ye together and sing 



6 The Adventure 

Him the song of the snake ! 
Come, gather together for him 
Ye virgmal powers, and prepare 
Your mercy ! 

2nd Maiden: 

My mercy? Ha, mine is the fire, 

For the sun was my sire ! 
4th Maiden: 

And mine the deep-water, 

I am darkness, her daughter ! 
1st Maiden: 

And I 

Am the child of the pitiless sky! 
;^rd Maiden: 

My mercy's the mirth 

Of the old savage Earth! 

Ha-ha! Ha-ha! 

Omnes: 

Hist! who goes there 
Through the flowers to Circe? 
For him we prepare, 
Everyone of us, that which is ours — 
Leers the snake: sings the song: 
And bare 

Gleams the imminent white 
Hand of Circe: 

Weave t02:ether the Powers, — 
For in each there is might, 
But beware of our mercy ! 
Hist! Hist! Who goes there? 
{As they zvithdrazv from stage on the left and right 



The Enchanted Woods 7 

front, enter cautiously from right rear, peering about 
them and listening anxiously, a zveather-worn Her- 
ald and Captain m faded browns, with spears.) 
Captain: 

Beware how you go! Did you not hear the snake? 
I warrant he has his couch among these roots : 
There — that is he ! — nay, so deceitful flickers 
The Hght among these boughs, I can be sure 
Of nothing. Only let us go with prudence. 
Herald: 

This is the pool whereof Ulysses told us. 
Anon the path plunges into the woods. 
Captain: 

Think you it carries to the other side 
This dreadful thicket, twisted all together 
And tangled up of thorns? 
Herald: 

Ay, for beyond 
Ulysses saw the forest-skirts withdrawn 
About white walls — and upwards smoke arising. 
Captain: 

But yet he would not venture nearer to them. 
Herald: 

Though the moon was high he was alone i' the 
night. 
Captain: 

O, I do not complain that he is prudent, 
I only wish he ever had been. For 
Mischief was in his soul that evil day 
He blinded Polyphemus and drew down 
Poseidon's wrath upon us, and therewith 
The storms that brought us here, my friend. But hist! 



8 The Adventure 

Have you not noted how downcast he grows,' 
How now his spirit stoops and laughs no more? 
Herald: 

It was no common flower, Eurylochus, 
That laughter of Ulysses ! 
Captain: 

It is dead, 
And he begins despairing of his errand. 
Sometimes I fear me we must choose another 
Leader, if we would come back home again. 
Herald: 

Despair? Another man might well despair 
Thwarted as he; but not Ulysses. Hark! 
I seem to hear but a little way off yonder — ^ 
As though it were to-morrow, — the good voice 
Of that great laughter. Nay, and who but he 
Could ever lead us home? 
Captain: 

Mistake me not. 
He is my cousin, nearer me than any, 
And yet I am not thinking now of us. 
But of you all. 
Herald: 

I am Ulysses' man. 
Captain: 

I was not bred to follow any man. 
Herald: 

Nor for any to follow! 
Captain: 

Nay, that may be! 
And yet, himself, staying yonder by the ship, 
Must give to me the charge of this adventure 



The Enchanted Woods 9 

Whereon our fortunes hang, though all our fellows 

Are red and ripe for mischief. Hark at them ! 

I have threatened and commanded and cajoled them, 

But they are bragging-drunk with liberty. 

The silence of the wood is full of evil: 

Sinisterly the trees smile, hstening, 

But they've nor ears nor eyes ! And yet Ulysses — 

Nay, hark you ! for I cannot understand 

How any man that knows the world as he 

Can send upon our errand such a fool 

As that Elpenor, picked up yesterday 

Somewhere among the isles — a womanish oaf 

With nothing in his head, save it be strange, 

Unseasonable tunes — equalling him 

With us, Ulysses' peers? Can you explain it? 

Herald: 

No, nor I would not ! Is it not enough 
To do the deeds he has allotted to us, 
But we must prove his choice, questioning this, 
Explaining that: must puzzle out anew 
What he has planned, to fail him in our part? 
'Grant you, the lad's a fool : he loves the lad, 
Sends him along with us, not us with him, 
To do the errand. Shall we carp at him 
Because he loves the fool? Nay, all the more 
He is Ulysses, and I love him for it! 
Come, Captain! (Exit Herald left rear.) 

Captain: 

It is very plain, my friend, 
That we have different services to do 
Ulysses. You obey — I understand. 
But no, his weakness for that fool I cannot. 



10 The Adventure 

It likes me not, Polites. {He perceives he is alone,) 

Hi! Polites! 
{Checks himself apprehensively.) 
The trees are listening! — Hist! — We will say no 

more ! — 
The fellow has plunged into the dumb woods and left 

me. 
I'll follow quickly ! Hist !— Polites— Hist ! 
Oh, but this forest is bewitched ! I know not 
Whether it be my own voice whispering 
Fear, or the coiled snake's warning! {Exit.) 

Voices: 

Hist! Who goes there! 
Through the wood to Circe! 
{Enter swiftly from the left and right front the 

Maidens,) 
1st Maiden: 

They ask for none to lead them! 
yd Maiden: 

Nay, there is no need for a guide in Circe's wood. 
{Voices heard on right.) 
1st Maiden: 

To yonder too, the way seems plain. They know 
not 
Whither, but come a-running in it ! Blind, 
The boughs shall push them! 
2nd Maiden: 

Now there comes a reek 
Of flesh ripe for its fall: forgetful flesh, 
Smoke heavy-sweet, ashes as light as dreams. 
^th Maiden: 

I foretaste Circe's cup that it is ready. 



The Enchanted Woods 1 1 

(Notes of a pipe are heard far azvay.) 
1st Maiden: 

But what far cry was that across the clamour? 
It should have been a lonely shepherd's pipe 
If shepherd there were any in the isle. 
^rd Maiden: 

I heard naught, sister. Nothing comes but rabble ! 
Away ! 
(They hide as before. Enter, running on the right, a 

little fat man with a wine-skin.) 
Wine-carrier: 

Hail Liberty! Thy name is Bacchus! 
And ha! I have thee! Wisely did Ulysses, 
Entrusting the god to me — Hop-'o-my-tnumb — 
Since being nimble-footed I have the advantage 
Over these louts to make the readier use 
Of his prime boon! — Ha-ha, one more good swig. 
Though I die drinking! — Here's to thee, Ulysses! 
(He drinks; voices on right.) 
Voices: 

Stop, thief! Stop him, Eurybates! He has run 
off with the bottle ! He is drinking all the wine ! 
(Enter Lieutenant, plunging blindly out of the dazzling 
light, and stmnblmg over the Carrier, who falls help- 
lessly under the new-comer, spilling the wine.) 
Lieutenant: 

Thunder of Zeus! Something is tripping me! 
Help ! I am covered with blood ! Help, fellows ! 
Wine-carrier, tinder him: 

Help ! Murder of Bacchus ! The wine is spilled ! 
We are crushed under this hippopotamus! — 

(Enter ^ running, other sailors.) 



12 The Adventure 

Others: 

What is all this shouting? Ha, a back! A back! 

{In turn they come vaulting over the Lieutenant, each 
man stooping down, frog-fashion, for the next: one 
falls: there is general confusion: red with wine the 
Carrier extricates himself ruefully; then, seeing his 
opportunity, scrambles on the Lieutenant's back and, 
kicking the kneeling hero's Hanks, begins to sing 
lustily. ) 

Wine-carrier: 

Dionysus on a goat, 
And the cup between his thumbs! 
The beast hath a beard upon his throat, 
Wherewith he tickles his rider's legs, 
And his little crank eyes are as yellow as eggs! 
Sing hi-ho ! For the wine-god comes 
Riding on the wine-god's goat. 

{After some struggle and confusion, the others imitate 
the example of the Wine-carrier and the Lieutenant, 
forming a sort of grotesque Bacchic procession:they 
all join in the song and chorus, marching round the 
stage and then disappearing into the forest on left 
rear. ) 

Wine -carrier: 

Dionysus on a goat, 
And the cup between his thumbs! 
Two crook-horns ana a curly coat 
And a couple of brace of bucking-pegs, 
And a one-stump tail that a-wag-a-wag-wags. 
Sing hi-ho! for the wine-god comes 
Riding on the wine-god's goat! 



The Enchanted Woods 13 



(Shouting): ii 

Come, my lads, come, my lads, this is the road to (! 

freedom ! '■ 

(Singing): \ 

Dionysus on a goat, J 

And the cup between his thumbs! !^ 

Laughter gurgles in his threat, '-^ 

As he druDs with his god-like heels and digs ,| 

The belly of the beast between his legs. | 

Singing hi-ho-ho ! for the wine-god comes • 1 

A-riding; on the wine-god's goat! Ho! ; 

A-riding, ho ! ! 

A-riding, ho! 'i 

A-riding on the wine-god's goat! | 

(As they withdraw in the rear, enter the Maidens from /j 

the front.) \ 

The Maidens: ' 

Hist ! who go there ^ i 

Through the woods to Circe? ' 

For them we prepare, ■ 

Every one of us, that which is ours — 

Leers the snake : sings the song : \ 
Gleams the imminent bare 

Hand of Circe! \ 
Hist! who go there! 

(Exeunt, following, left.) 
Curtain. 



Act II 
The Moly Flower 

The same Scene. Piping. Enter on right the piper 
Elpenor in faded yellow-green tunic, who comes to the 
pool and ceases playing. 
Piper: 

They have not waited for me as they promised. 
They have forgot me : what am I to them, 
Or they to me ? Let them forget me — Ribalds 1 
For this, our errand's sake, it is very sure 
They and I are best quit of one another: 
We seek our freedom other ways, to find her 
Only apart. I will wait for Her here 
Hidden amid the wood's forget fulness {sits by the 

pool.) 
Beauty divine! Huntress of beast and youth! 
Swift Artemis, here is thy hunting ground — 
Cover and thicket and recess of gloom ; 
Light that is old and young: shadow and gleam 
Thronging with fleet, innumerable things 
That spring out of the teeming earth to run 
With the line and lilt of the branches, through this 

dream 
Of twilight forestry! Who would not give 
Eagerly up his youth if he might be 
The quarry of thy white killing? Who would not 



The Moly Flower 15 j 

Escape from manhood to become a deer f 

Fleeing from thine inevitable shafts, ( 

O Artemis, Artemis, Queen of the Wild? ^ 

Enter Moly in a gleanimg smock with rippling yellow ^ 

hair, follozving the Piper, and moving as in a dream. I 

Moly, as though awaking: J 

Ah !— \ 

Piper, turning tozvards her: | 

Am I never then to be alone? J 

Moly, looking about her apprehensively: i 

O, v^hither has your piping carried me? i 

Into what dread, motionless silences? j 

Piper: i 

Why did you follovi^ me? | 

Moly: J 

From the sea-banks up S^ 

By the rocky foreland, on through matted ways, I 

Dreaming, my feet came, for your piping drew them ; ; 

But whither was it going, going, going? i 

You cannot, of a sudden, bid it cease! | 

Piper: | 

You are full friendly! If I go on piping I 

Still, will you follow ? j 

Moly: -i 

Not into the wood ! I 

Nor can you blow your pipe among the trees! j 

For this is Axor's Oak ! — They say it keeps ^ 

Watch betwixt us and Them. Beyond is peril j 

For sea-folk and sea-farers! — How 'tis still! \ 

Pipe to me — speak to me — my name is Moly. '• 

Piper: ;| 

I had as well wait here until the night. 5 



16 The Adventure 

I doubt She is not yet abroad for hunting. — ' 

*'Moly" — it is a name good for the lips j 
Of laughing waves that run along the strand 
And leap the rocks in the sunshine. Me they call 

The piper, and the fool Elpenor — ; 

Moly: S 

"Fool?" :| 

Piper: 

I am a stranger to them. | 

Moly: \ 

I was thinking, J 

How I myself am a light, foolish thing, | 
Mere play-fellow, sea-blooded. Pipe or talk 

And I am satisfied; but let there fall j 

Silence, and it is still — I am afraid. j 

Piper: j 

Nay, child — you need fear nothing! Am not I 
The comrade of Ulysses, the great King? 

Moly: ' 

Ulysses — what is that name? Ulysses — Hark! 
(Listening as though she heard a voice in the oak-tree.) ] 

It seemed as though I heard the oak-tree's voice > 

Murmur among the branches, *Tt is he, | 

And it is his that go in peril, here !" | 

Piper: ] 

When was Ulysses not in peril? Nay, 
But this is like enough, dear child ! Yet now 

That they are gone without me, though for them I 

Who are his, it may be perilous, for me ; 
Who am no longer one of them — for me 

The peril is not: speak no more of it. ' 



The Moly Flower 17 

Moly: 

I had rather dance to your pipe, or laugh with you ! 
I do not want to tell the secrets of the wood : 
They are not mine, and the telling is not for me. 
O, if some breeze would blow and rattle the leaves, 
I could be morry here ! Nay, but this stillness 
Is like the solemn deep-water that chides me, 
Child of the ripples. The assembled trees 
Observe me, and the solemn pool forbids. 
Why did I follow you here to the forest borders? 
Pipe, pipe ! Or if you may not, let me go 
And quickly, back to my playfellows that are 
The whimsies of the wind and of the sea 
Along the strand. 
Piper: 

But if I pipe to you 
Your merrymaking voice will then be still: 
I think it never told ill-tidings. Nay, 
You shall not go and leave me ! 
Moly: 

Wanderer — 
Piper: 

Call me not wanderer, for I will go 
A-field no more. 
Moly: 

But these are Circe's woods. 
Where, if you stay and will not pipe to me. 
Nor any sea-breeze blow away the gloom. 
My words must change from merry, to tell how 
There is none of all these trees, but she will lay 
Spells on you in the silence, dropping leaves 



18 The Adventure 

That are not leaves upon you as you go. 
Piper: 

Come then, sea-maiden, I will blow my pipe 
Till you forget this Circe and her trees. 
We are alone together — 
Moly: 

Not alone! 
For They are here: the Hidden Ones are here 
In league against us ! Hark ! 
Piper: 

We are alone. 
Come, I will play, and you shall dance for me. 
Here on the lawn, sea-dances. 
Moly: 

No, not here ! 
No, no ! You must not ! — nor I cannot, here. 
About us in the stillness, everywhere 
Are bodiless voices, and I hear them say: 
(She repeats the Chant of the Voices she hears,) 

Little Flower, what is it lying at your feet? 
It is a leaf from far some wantoning wind has brought. 
Sea-maiden, it is nothing but a leaf; 
A dry leaf caught up on some gust, whirled, swirled. 
And swept at last up hither, you following, Little 

Flower ! 
Little Flower, what is it lying at your feet? 

O, there were others, but they all passed by : 
Chatter they all to the bright doors together : 
Circe comes out: catches them in her hands; 
"Perhaps," saith she, "they are not chattering leaves: 
Let me try with my white fingers what they are" : 
But — sh ! she casts them from her : 



The Moly Flower 19 



Comes a flurry of wind and whistles away. | 

Tread them into the mire now with your feet, '? 

Lady Circe has whistled them away ! ' 

Moly, Little Flower, what is it at your feet? ^j 

(mockingly) j 

At your feet, your feet? Is it a dead leaf? j! 

Piper, leaping up: \ 

You mock at me ! You shall not mock at me ! ' -^ 

Moly: ' 

Piper, it was not I, but the bodiless voices. j 

Piper: I 

A dead leaf! Ho, but I am quick, and quick! ■ 

(He attempts to seise her; she Hies.) ! 
Ho! Little Flower, it is you that shall be plucked! 
Voiecs: 

Dead Leaf ! Little Flower ! Into the mire with it ! ^j 

(Laughter among the trees.) I 

Moly: I 

Father Poseidon, save me from the forest ! I 
(She escapes on right ; he follozvs, hut returns.) 

Piper: ^ i 

She mocked at me with mischief-eyes and mouth, -j 
Then she fled down the sea-way. Let her go ! 

I will not follow. I am for the woods. ' 

She would have drawn me from among- the trees, i 

Back to the restless sea ; but I will stay : i 

The night shall find me on the forest-border. .j 

Am I not come upon Ulysses' errand? | 

Ulysses! — what was it she said of peril | 

Waiting for him and hi^. For him I'll watch | 

Till he comes hither: I'll be ears and eyes: '« 



20 The Adventure 

Truant although they call me, who but I 

Shall serve Ulysses? Let the rest go by. 

Perish their ugly mouths ! They never were 

Elpenor's friends. But though Ulysses beat me 

With heavier hand than any, yet his eyes, 

Whether I wake or sleep, are good to me. 

(Having withdrazvn somewhat, he lies down and falls 

asleep, concealed among the trees: the light is dim. 

Confused and muffled, but mocking music, murmurs 

among the forest trees. Re-enter Moly on the 

right.) 
Moly: 

The place is all beset with menaces : 
Yet will I venture to the pool! — Ah, now 
I have you, my piper, my playfellow! 
Let me consider how I may carry you 
To a merrier place ; for now, in sooth, you are mine. 
Voice from the Oak: 

He is not yours ^who sleeps beneath my boughs. 
Moly, withdrazving a little in fear: 

Just keeper of the forest-borders, Axor, 
Who, with thy warning snake, watchest between 
The wanderer and the peril of the wood ; 
Who standest by the pool and tellest counsel. 
Speaking among the oak-bous:hs! — O, god Axor, 
Give him not to the forest, but to me ! 
He piped me all the way up from my sea-caves 
Until I loved him, Axor! Shall the forest 
Cheat me of him? Why should I Sfive him up? 
What need hath Circe of my playfellow? 
Many she hath, and never loveth none. 
But, as tales tell, their manhood furnisheth 



The Moly Flower 21 

With somewhat all too rare that greedy loom 
Before whose evil-waxing web she sings. 
Nay, let me cherish him, beside the sea! 
Voice: 

Under my boughs his choice fulfils itself. 
Moly: 

Nay, see, how in his sleep he dreams of me! 
Voice: 

What have you that can keep his heart away 
From Circe that begins to draw him thither? 
Moly: 

I have sea-spells, and mine own maidenhood. 
Voice: 

He is a-weary of the sea, he seeks 
Fierce pleasures. 
Moly: 

Nay, he loves me! 
Voice: 

What have you 
Hid in your breast? 
Moly: 

Nothing, god Axor! 
Voice: 

Yea!^ 
But there is something hid between your breasts. 
Piper dreaming: 

Flower of Sea-laughter! 
Moly: 

O awake to me! 
Voice: 

Touch him not ! Take your lips away from him. 



22 The Adventure 

You shall not cheat him so! It is not you, 
It is the Moly-flovver he summonses. 
Moly: 

But Axor, it is me 1 
Piper: 

Come, Little Flower! 
(She bends over and would kiss him, but is prevented.) 
Moly: 

O cruel, will you then deceive his dreams? 
Voice: 

Here on the border of this forest, I, 
Axor, let none be cheated of his choice. 
And though yourself know not you carry it, 
Yet, hiding in your breast, his dreaming gaze 
Grown lucid with a visionary sight, 
Hath seen the spirit flower, and chosen it. 
Moly: 

O rede me no more riddles, lest I die! 
Voice: 

This lad is on the errand of another, 
And unto you, with love of him, is given 
The talisman that must accomplish it. 
Wherefore you shall not cheat him with your lips; 
The charm is in your breast, the secret flower! 
Piper, as before: 

Flower of Sea-laughter ! — Moly — Little Flower ! 

Moly: 

Would it had been for me that you were fain ! 

(She finds a white flozver in her breast, drazvs it forth 
wondering, reluctantly kisses and gives it into the 
dreamer's hands, and so, gazing on him, and turning, 



The Moly Flower 23 



and often looking back, she goes her ways to the sea \ 

again. \ 

The light increases to broad day as Ulysses enters ] 

meditatively, carrying a purple cloak on his arm: { 

he pauses by the pool.) I 

Ulysses: ,:; 

It was but yesternight beside this pool, { 

As though some kindly god had bidden him, | 

A royal quarry waited on my spear — | 

Yesternight, and again I come ! But why, . \ 

Why, publicly having forsworn this quest J 

And sent up them — Eurylochus for prudence, | 

But, lest he turn aback, faithful Polites, i 

Eurybates, Anchialos, and he I 

My vagrom lad o' dreams and the other sight i 

Who will never be but half a man, Elpenor — J 

Why, having bidden them — "Go ! — I will keep the 

ship !"— I 

Am I here at this pool again? It is ! 

One instance more of that continuous strife i 

Waging between my will and me, wherein ' 

Some mightier purpose of my Destiny 
Thrusts in athwart my choice, and I, beneath 
Her grey, inevitable gaze, unsay 

My well-considered words and waive my choice: j 

As on that early morning when the kings :\ 

Were setting forth for Troia, and they sent I 

Minding me of the vow I had sworn them to — : 

That every one of us, princes that were 
Rivals together for Helen the wonder of Hellas, 

Ever for worship of her that might not be | 

Prize of our several wooing, into a league, 



24 The Adventure 

Hazardous, mighty, for her fame should bind us. 
But therewith, having sworn them, my heart forgot 
All for Penelope, and I brought her home. 

Nay, I remember that morning: I would not go 
Forth to the sowing of blood, and the ploughing of seas 
In a wanton's quarrel ! I harnessed me steed by steer 
— A motley team — I ploughed in salt, and I mocked 
Their madness that bade me forth. 

I would not, yet I went. 
Who was Ulysses to stay in Ithaca 
With all the world for Troy? Across the years 
I see that morning: — see Penelope, 
New-made a mother, with the little lad 
Shining in her bright breast ; a man perverse 
Of will, ever I would not ere I would. 

I have had enough of perils ! Here's another. 
I cannot rest: my heart will go: I am jealous 
Of mine own messengers to follow them ! 
Well-matched am I, with this same thunder-weather, 
That veers and parleys, waiting on the hour 
When, from his unknown cavern bursting forth 
Black-horsed upon some mad contrarious wind. 
Headlong arrives the herald of the storm. 

Why do they not return? But see, they come! 
(Enter, right rear, hurrying, hut ever and anon look- 
ing behind him, the Captain.) 
Captain: 

Begone, begone! Once I am out of the wood 
I shall be rid of you ! Ugh ! I can feel the whole 
Herd of them following! Horror! Horror! Horror! 
(He perceives Ulysses standing before him.) 
They follow me, Ulysses — do they not follow? 



The Moly Flower 25 



Ulysses: \ 

I see none following. Do you come alone? j 

Captain: ] 

O, thank the blessed gods! I have shaken them \ 

off i 

At last, and left them with the wicked woods! — i 

I could never see them follow if. I turned, \ 

But, turn again, and they were there behind me! i 

Ulysses: ) 

Order your speech, cousin, that I may have 

Tale of the halls that lie beyond the wood, i 

And word of our companions. ^ 

Captain: ; 

Word? Ay, one \ 

Sole word, Ulysses — "Hence!" — It is all there! ) 

Hence ! from their ruin only I escape : I 

Hence ! I can tell no more among the trees. 1 

Ulysses: ' 

Let us spend none of our good breath in running 

Down yonder, only to come hither back. • 

Captain: j 

Hence ! They are done ! \ 

Ulysses: • \ 

But yet by whom ? Where ? How ? j 

Captain: ^ 

O, yonder, by a woman, a witch-woman. ' 

Her song was like some spring in a hill-meadow i 
Welling up full into a great black pool 

Whereinto Horror looks and sees her face. ' 

Ulysses: [ 

But did they run and drown themselves therein j 



26 The Adventure 

While you, sir, swam upon the magic pool? 
What vague, wild words are these, Eurylochus, 
That trespass on your customary mien? 
How you are changed out of your careful self ! 
Captai)i: 

Changed ! — Has the horror come then upon me ? 
But yet I entered not — I only heard 
Afar her singing — only from afar 
With loathing saw her ! — Changed ! Nay, in the pool 
My face is still the same — How am I changed? 
Ulysses: 

From prudence into fear, my friend — as though 
Hades had, from an ambush in the woods, 
Lept out his grizzly company upon you ; 
Or the rough god of laughter had beset 
You like an earthquake, for, escaping, still 
You breathe the panic air! 
Captain: 

Let us away, 
Verily, terror lurks among the leaves! 
(Ulysses detains him zvith an imperious look.) 
Yet is it not so much terror, as shame 
That in my flesh I have beheld and seen 
Such treasons wrought my Hps refuse to utter. 
Ulysses: 

Hark then, while I tell your tale : you shall stand 

by, 

Assenting or demurring. You came all 

To the gates, and heard the singing there within, 

And all drew into it, as moths that draw 

Into a lantern — saving you — for you 

Are not the man could any woman fool 



The Moly Flower 27 

With whatsoever singing! — herds may follow 
The piper; stones to the lute may dance, but O, 
Not you, Eurylochus! — Yet went they in 
And you might not prevent them. 
Captain: 

Though I drew 
My sword against their passage — ^yet they went, 
Polites leading them. 
Ulysses: 

He needs must go, 
They needs must follow him. In spite of you, 
Thus they went in? 
Captain: 

I saw them come again — 
Ulysses: 

They are not wholly perished, then? 
(Captain shuddering, puts his hands over his eyes.) 

But no, 
The woman doubtless hath some other spell 
Than only singing: and I would it might 
Be mightier, for I am in need of might. 
Perilous though it be — the thing I seek 
Is perilous. Thus our companions came 
Forth of the doors, but changed — 
Captain: 

Look in my face, 
And you have seen, without my telling it. 
This day's confused and monstrous ruin — O, 
They are men no longer: horrors of the night: 
Shapes of enchantment ! See, agu,m, again 
They come about us — and the wood brims up 
With the witch-woman's song! I hr.ve escaped 



28 The Adventure 

To warn you away, Ulysses; and to save 
For the poor remnant of a goodly host 
At least their leader, but at most — for yet, 
In spite of these disasters that beset you, 
I deem you shall at last return — their king. 
Ulysses: 

But yonder fellows, captive, and in thrall, 
Your company entrusted to you — is it 
Your counsel that we venture naught for them? 
Captain: 

Let pity not deceive your generous heart 
With hope forlorn 1 No deed is left to do 
But quickly to begone hence. Yonder queen 
Is nothing but an image of deceit 
Clad as a woman — fair in sooth to see — 
Too fair — her beauty makes the monster more. 
There is but little sword-craft to be wrought 
On such as she, whom sorcery houses with. 
Wherefore, Ulysses, to you my counsel is, 
Keep all your pity for the remnant left you 
Beside the ship, since naught can it avail 
These that are gone, but only will bring down 
Irreparable ruin on us all. 
Naught is to win, but all is to be lost 
Up yonder! 
Ulysses: 

You have counselled wisely — yet 
Many adventures shared have made us one: 
They are become my flesh. 
Captain: 

The witch hath penned them 
Behind her stye-wattles: there then they batten, 



The Moly Flower 29 

Contented with the trough and with the mire! 

I did not think to tell it. — Will you then 

Go look on them you loved? Or will you — O 

Pardon my words, that cannot speak to you 

Less than the ugly horror! — will you join 

That dismally contented fellowship 

Of Circe's guests, who dream that they are kings? 

Ulysses: 

The plainer grows your speech, the more I thank 
you, 
Trusty Eurylochus. Yet now I would 
I had remained beside the ship, for there, 
Mayhap, I should not have forgotten all 
The others of my company for yonder 
So dismally contented fellowship. 
They draw me to them : yet not pity draws me ! 
But to a new adventure, eagerly 
Answering, leaps my heart ! — We will go up. 
And with the instance of their need will come 
Counsel into my heart to succour them. 
Captain, concealing his terror: 

This well may be, yet first let us come down 
To where the rest wait for our coming. Trust me 
To do your bidding when beside the ship 
Counsel is clear; but here among the trees. 
As we stand parleying, I am aware 
Of heavy perfumes — and they seem to steal 
Upon the brain like poison to betray us. 
Ulysses: 

Again you speak with prudence, but again 
My soul will not consent with this delay. 
The sun draws down to setting, in an hour 



30 The Adventure 

It will be dark. I will not let the night 

Set her irrevocable seal upon 

The doing of this day to end it thus 

In horror! 

Captain: 

But Ulysses, what is done 
Is done! Then add no more to it, for in sooth, 
111 as it is, how might it be the less 
In being more? — And cousin, after all — 
Ulysses: 

Enough ! Your words are grown unprofitable ! 
Your prudence is unmanned : your counselling 
Whines like a coward with its "After all," 
Its "What's done's done!" — Was there no passion 

went 
To your begetting that your heart can beat 
Such music, when my own cries forward ? Come ! 
Captain: 

I'll perish first! Am I escaped for this? 
This were no way to serve you ! Nay, I see 
The madness of the forest in your eyes ! 
By my good blade, you shall not go up yonder! 
I will prevent you ! 

(He draws and stands in Ulysses' path.) 
Ulysses: 

Stand out of my path ! 
Fool! do you think your doubtful sword, that failed 
To stay Polites yonder, will avail 
Against my purpose? 
Captain: 

Why did you not keep 



The Moly Flower 31 



Your promise ? You have broken faith with me : 

Left your aliotted post: spied on me: nay, j 
You shall not pass, Ulysses ! 

Ulysses: ji 
I will pass. 

(They Ught: the Captain makes a vigorous resistance \ 

hut is disarmed.) \ 

That folly's quickly done : and no blood lost. | 

Come, look not so glum and chapfallen; nay, > 

I have no mind to force you go up with me ! I 

I am the better man without you there. \ 

Go, get you down to the ship and wait for me. \ 

Captain: i 

We are undone : this that I had foreseen | 

Is come upon us : woe that it should be ! j 
Ulysses' company must choose another 

Leader, if they would come back home again! 1 

Ulysses: j 

Hark you ! You will attempt no treason ! Nay — \ 
I trust you now for nothing, but for fear ! — 

You will attempt no treason, for I swear i 

Whoever lays a hand upon the tackling, I 

Or stirs a foot in the surf, the pitiless shark I 

Shall spoil him, and the unremembering wind i 
Whiten his bones upon a desolate shore ! 
And none shall weep for him : and he shall be 

A ghost unwelcome, unbefriended, lonely, ! 

Ever among the dead : because a curse, j 

Ulysses' curse, shall follow him and cry : 
"Treachery" round him wheresoe'er he flee ! 



32 The Adventure 

I swear it, calling on Athene's name, 

My friend, most high ! — 

Answer me nothing ! Go ! 

{He dismisses Eurylochus, who goes dejectedly to 
right.) 

He meant it honestly, he would almost, 

Almost have died to hinder me. But now 

Nothing can turn me from mine errand till 

I bring my comrades with me. 

{Turning to the left, about to go up through the wood, 
he discovers the Piper.) 

Here is one 

That's neither changed nor perished — yet asleep 

Amid our angry words, our clashing blades, 

On the borders of the affrighting wood, as though 

There were no dire deed done, or dread to do! 

Wake thee, Elpenor ! Wilt thou go with me ? 

{Although the Piper raises his head and opens his 
eyes, there is no recognition in them, and his speech 
is changed to a rhythmical chant, as though the oak- 
god zvere using him as a vehicle for utterance.) 

Piper {Axor): 

Thou that would'st get thee up to yonder place, 
Surely thou seekest for some gift or grace: 
Bethink thee, ere thou enter the dark grove, 
Whether the hope thou followest may prove 
Unworth the going thither ; for no track 
Was ever known to bring the traveller back, 
Once he had crossed the sill and drunk the cup. 
Ulysses: 

Whate'er the coming back, I will go up. 



The Moly Flower 33 

Ax or: 

Dark as the grove may be, yet darker is 
The path descending to the last Abyss : 
Dread though the Woman of Mystery and Wrath, 
O yet more dreadful that descending path 
That gives upon the purlieus of the Dead — 
If such a path there be for foot to tread, 
If any foot should ever thence return. 
Ulysses: 

Instruct me of the way and I will learn. 
Ax or: 

Naught of that way I tell, if way there be, — 
Yet am I not unknowing. 
Ulysses: 

Counsel me ! 
Axor: 

This counsel : go not to yon place of power 
Unguarded by the ungatherable flower 
That mortal may not pluck in field or glade 
Or dig about its dark root with a spade: 
Star-bright its face, but horror-rooted, stark: 
Sweet-perfumed, but it oozes bloody dark 
Drops where its roots are torn out of the slime. 
It shall anneal thee. 
Ulysses: 

It is like a crime 
To carry the ugly thing against my flesh! 
Axor: 

Yet this alone defies the subtle mesh 
Of the dream-maker: this alone defies 
Her poison, and keeps vision in the eyes 
In spite of her within whose isle thou art : 



34 The Adventure 

This, only this, may keep thee whole of heart, j 

Where nothing might avail thy shield or wit. | 

Ulysses: j 

But tell me what this flower, and whence is it? j 

(He is now holding it in his hand: and the oracle 

vouchsafes no anszver.) ! 

No answer ! — nor it needs none. Yet, and yet — ■ 

These womanish spells, and this frail counter-charm, j 
What are they but a tissue that must vanish i 

Once I but challenge it with manly will, j 

Demanding back my comrades from their Dream? - 

Can I not wake them with my naked voice, , 

My own mere hand ? But yet I deem this flower 
Is of some simple virtue — and its juice 
May change the dark complexion of this cup : 

Of hers. I will prove it. — But for you, lad, stay i 

Till I have need of you. i 

(Ulysses goes up through the wood zvith slow, deter- 
mined step: exit left rear.) 
Piper, coming to himself: < 

Am I alone? 
But I heard voices. Here was the Captain: here 
Ulysses stood. He spoke, and I spoke with him. 
Yet what I know not ; the words were not mine. j 

Ulysses has gone up where I would go, , 

To Circe. Would I had not lingered: all i 

But I have taken her service : in my dream ^ 

I saw her dark, desirous woman's face. 
Last of all I, who should have been the first, 
Piping them thither, answering her song , 

Of passion with my pipe — I follow last. " 

(He attempts to follow Ulysses, but cannot.) ] 



The Moly Flower 35 ] 

Nay, what is come to me? I cannot stir: I 
I am rooted here : I am become a tree. 

(Laughter is heard in the woods.) ' 

But yet the others mock me : I am alone : ] 

I am alone in the woods, and it grows dark. j 

(With a gesture of horror he covers his eyes with his \ 

hands and crouches down at the front of the stage.) 
O, hast thou not an arrow left for me, 

Artemis, Artemis ! — I am no tree, \ 

I am a very man. f 

Mocking Voices echo: » .J 

A very man ! ^ 

Curtain. } 



Act III 
The Enchantress 

Scene: A dimly lighted, almost cavern-like, hut spa- 
cioiis interior, richly hung with bluish-green tapestries, 
and broken by the ruddy pillars which support the 
roof. At the rear are high doors; steps lead dozvn 
from these to the forest and the coast. In the front 
centre is a hearth, and an ancient stone seat, covered 
ivith a ceremonial cloth, beside it on the left; against 
the zvall is a great upright loom: on the right a small 
stand, and a stool; there is a carved chest against the 
right zvall. It is a little before sunset. An old zuitch, 
almost black, clad in dark brozvn, is szveeping out the 
hall, snarling and mumbling as she does so. 
Witch: 

Come and gone — come and gone again ! 
Here's a mug for the each of you, she says, a dish 
for your belly, and a maid for your bed, — ay, and take 
your pick, but your leavings shall be mine, says she: 
and a' drinks, and a' kisses, and a' cannot — he ! he ! 
But the squealing and the scrimmage till they're gone 
again ! 

La, she's a good 'un, this queen-witch ! A quick and 
a ready with her jest — and smiles so as never! — 
You cannot but cackle at her drolleries. A score of 
great braggarts they were too ! With the blades and the 



The Enchantress 37 

pikes, the tatters and the beards, the mouths and red 
eyes of 'em ! Ripe and ravening after drink and 
victual, and the merrier stuff us maids are fashioned 
of ! I know 'em — I know 'em ! When I was a young 
lass — la no ! — a woman is not old for naught ! Belike 
I could tell a tale: Gaia! Did my old mother get me 
of a Sunday? 
(She shuts the great doors; the Second Maiden enters 

on right, carrying a bundle of twigs.) 
2nd Maiden: 

You and your broom may scavenger the floor, 
But they have breathed the air, befouling it. 
{She casts a bundle of tzvigs on the hearth: it smokes.) 
Witch: 

Ay, they ha' left their stench behind 'em. 
(She crouches by the hearth and fumbles in her dress.) 

But here I've some'at — here. I'll warrant this to 
cure it better than all your libanum and styrax. Like 
for like, girl ! (Sniifing.) Man's grease ! Eh ? 'Twould 
turn the belly of a toad ! La, now, it rises like flies do 
from a carcase — buzz ! buzz ! buzz ! 
(Enter on the right, the other Maidens, carrying the 
implements of service — the First a zither, the Third 
a spinning zuheel, the Fourth a golden bowl.) 
4th Maiden, polishing the bozul at the stand on ri^ht: 

They mouthed and fingered it, but hardly might 
they 
Dull even its rim, so fiercely doth it shine ! 
2,rd Maiden, handling a mass of rough, bright silk by 
the loom: 

Unutterable as these men-beasts be, 
Yet have they furnished Circe's loom afresh 



38 The Adventure 

With all this gleaming, many-coloured wealth! 

1st Maiden, stringing her zither on the stool: 

Hark ! You can hear already, while I stretch it, 

How the gut cries — O, wilder than the wind ! 

I'll still serve Circe while she disentangles 

So pure a fibre from so gross a flesh. 

Witch, glowering over the hearth: 

Buzz ! buzz ! It's strong enough to fructify ! Eh, 

but what's that I see? — A rat, a red rat running in 

the embers ! He runs ! He jumps into my lap ! 

Ah-h-h! 

{She runs shuddering out on right.) 

2nd Maiden: 

How villainous the creature is ! 

i^^ Maiden: 
To think 

She is bred of the same human stuflf as Circe, 

Whom we, that are not human, stand beside 

This ugly thing, and serve. 

^th Maiden: 

Hist!— It is she! 

{Enter on left, tall, dark zvith raven hair, and Hre-red 
robe, her olive arms hare to the shoulder, Circe. The 
Maidens rise as she enters. As she goes to her loom, 
the Second draivs it from the zvall, uncovering it: 
the Third brings her nezv thread on a shuttle. Hav- 
ing herself lowered the zveb, she begins to zveave. 
As she proceeds in silence, the design becomes 
rapidly plain to see, shezving, in broad, archaic fash- 
ion, the enchantress seated, mixing a potion in a 
bozvl, zvhile a fair, bearded man, in sailor's hat, ap- 
proaches, raising his hand as if in greeting or invo- 



The Enchantress 39 

cation; on either side of these tzvo stand brute- 
headed human figures, pitifully attempting to inter- 
vene. The First Maiden, having strung her zither 
anew, begins to play.) 
4th Maiden, looking on the web: 

Where have I seen that face ? Last night 'twas he 
That swam the ripples in the mixing bowl, 
Like some divine seafarer. 
2nd Maiden: 

And I saw 
That face i' the fire : steadfastly bright it shone, 
Changed not with the gleeds, nor ate itself away, 
i^^ Maiden: 

Lady, the strings cry out for you to sing 
Your weaving song ! Methinks some mighty one 
Even now approaches by the forest way. 
^rd Maiden, spinning, on right: 

If they should herald him that yesternight 
Did murder there — here's stuff to tangle him! 
(Circe sings, moving to and fro, plucking the ivarp 
threads, and throwing the gleaming shuttle: a red 
Hre on hearth.) 
Circe: 

When Day, slow-footed, stooping, 

Awearily lets fall 

His great gold cup, and all 

The wonder that it held 

Flaming outflows 

A molten flood of fire. 

Till like a red, red rose 

Heavily drooping 

The gloaming is fulfilled 



40 The Adventure 

With heart's desire : 

— There's yet a redder rose, 

A redder blood-red fire : — 

The dark rose blown 

In my sea-thicket lone, 

Wine that I sup 

From my sea-secret cup. (A blue Hre.) 

The night-dark Queen of splendour 

Ascends with beams unshorn 

She winds her clear white horn 

With starry breath, 

Till all the billowy throng 

Of living souls reply ; 

Yea, from the sills of death 

Thousands attend her. 

But all their myriad cry 

Is one wild song — 

There's yet a wilder song. 

Catching a wilder breath. 

When the quick and the dead 

On my fey-loom I wed: 

The words that I sing 

From their fey-passion spring. 

{Changing flames of blue and red.) 

Cryptic, divine, forbidden. 
Enraptured of the night, 
Is that fruit of delight 
Whose purple blood divides 
The heart from any ill : 
But who knows where it hides ? 



The Enchantress 41 

I keep it hidden 
In mnie enchanted hill 
Amid the sea. 
— There is no bliss besides 
My boon of being free 
Save but these twain : — 
All my wild cup to drain, 
And to take for his flesh 
This my fey-woven mesh. 
Voice without: 

Ho, there ! within ! — 
Circe: 

Open our doors to him. 
(The gloomy halls glow redly: Circe zvinds up her 
weaving, while the Second Maiden pushes back the 
loom, the Fourth sets the great bozvl on the stand, 
the First is still striking chords from the zither, 
when the Third, having set her spinning wheel on 
left, opens the doors, that give on the porch and 
court, letting in a flood of red light. Against the 
sky and sea-line stands a bearded man in sailor's 
hat: a panther slinks beside him.) 
2nd and 4th Maidens: 

The face against the sky, Circe, the face ! 
^rd Maiden, at the door: 

Stranger, what brings you as the sun sets, hither? 
Ulysses: 

Three several matters, maiden : first, this creature 
Serving me through the intricacies of the wood 
As a dog may some blind old beggar man — 
^rd Maiden: 

He hath done well, doing his part to-night. 



42 The Adventure 

Ulysses, mockingly: 

111 done or well, 'tis plain his part is done. 
{Panther slinks away.) 

Secondly, my seaworthy legs have brought me: 
Thirdly, my heart and errand. 

Circe, in the shadow of a pillar on the left front by the 
loom: 

Wanderer, 
Be welcome here, whither and whencesoever ! 
Ulysses: 

I thank that royal voice in the blood-red gloom 
That now it hath done singing condescends 
To common speech ! In sooth I am a beggar. 
yd Maiden, leading him in: 

Our treasure house is heavy as a rose 
With far forgotten, nay, forbidden dreams, 
Hope elsewhere blighted, promise else unkept. 
Fugitive forms of passionate desire — 
1st Maiden, still fingering her zither: 

Here will we satisfy you, wanderer, 
Till all the ache of wandering be forgot. 
Ulysses, seating himself on the stool by the hearth and 
regarding her: 

Forgot? What is all this about forgetting? — 
But will ye give me that which I shall ask? 
2}Ki Maiden, tending the hearth: 

Nay, doubt it never ! 
Ulysses: 

Little may it avail, 
Though ye be spangled like the night sky over 
With pleasures, though ye shepherd such desires 
As that, for any one of your flock, another 



The Enchantress 43 I 

i 

Should give you worship — if among them be not 

This I am seeking i 

4th Maiden, bringing in a wine jar and phials: » 

Have we ever failed, i 

Lady, to fill the cup of any yet? j 

Ulysses: i 

The cup is deep : a man might drown in it ! \ 

Nay, and I ask — When one is come a-seeking ; 

And is set down — as I am set — among you, } 

Do ye not waken in him some desire \ 

Other than that was in his heart — till he . 

Forget, forget his errand and be done? 1 

yd Maiden, returning to her spinning zvheel: \ 

Often, in sooth, we are fain to give him glimpses ^ 

Of happiness which he might never guess. ^ 

2nd Maiden: v 

It is not in the compass of his hope | 
What wealth of pleasure is laid up in store 
Here for him. 

4th Maiden: ' 

Nor the giddy joys above, I 
Nor whirling joys beneath ! — But after Circe 
Hath mixed for him the guest-cup, it may be 

That rising from beneath its bubbles, he ' 

Will catch his soul's desire that hitherto J 

Seemed too-audacious, too-bewildering — ; 

yd Maiden: i 

But she will make it his — j 
Ulysses: 

Will make it mine ! 
Ha I maidens, ha ! it may be ! — But for me. 



44 The Adventure 

My choice is settled : if I ask for silver 
Bring me not gold, for silver I will have 
Or i 11 have nothing. 
Circe: 

Guest, do you not waste 
Words, since you tell us not what is your choice? 
Ulysses: 

Should I not waste them, rather, telling you? 
For this I seek, I doubt ye have it not. 
Circe: 

Yet, being come hither, you should ask for it. 
Ulysses: 

What if already I have asked and gotten 
Such answer as I cannot take from any? 
Hither I sent up certain on this quest — 
Some were great hearts, worthy of welcome ; some 
Poor, sorry fellows that ye might have bettered — 
But hence ye thrust them, worser than they came. 
ist Maiden, with her sit her on right: 

We send none hence but as themselves have 
chosen ! 
Ulysses: 

Nay, then, ye wry their choice! Ye plant false 
lusts 
Or foolish in their hearts that do betray them ! 
Circe: 

You parley long, stranger, and evil words 
I hear you give my maidens, but I hear not 
Your errand or your name; would you perchance 
Conceal them from us? That were idle: these 
You speak of, spake of you as of their chief. 



The Enchantress 45 

Ulysses: 

My name ? — Ulysses ! Do your worst with it ! 
Maidens, his singly : 

Ulysses ! 
Circe: 

Nay, Ulysses, as you will. 
Yet would I fain do better than my worst, 
Aiding your errand, since you come to me. 
Ulysses: 

I am come seeking Freedom — but methinks 
I am come into a dungeon seeking it. 
Circe: 

Your eyes are still withholden of the daylight, 
And of the mystic voices ye hear none. 
Wherefore must ye my maidens every one, 
And we, whom ye have chosen hierophani. 
Prepare his eyes and ears that they discover 
The place where he is come ! — Close to the doors, 
Bring in the torches ; bathe and clothe our guest ! 
While we also make ready what is ours. 
{She goes out on left.) 
yd Maiden, closing the doors: 

The day goes down into his cave to sleep. 
The day is done. 
Ulysses: 

Shut not his splendour out ! 
4th Maiden: 

'Tis all shed now, and every living drop 
Gathered into this westward leaning grail. 
But lest the night ghosts and the thirsty dead 
Should steal it, we must seal our treasure up. 



46 The Adventure 

^rd Maiden: 

When the sun sets this air is fever fraught. 
Ulysses: 

Less perilous, now that those great doors are shut, 
Less perilous the forest : for within, 
And not without, the feverish dark distils 
Into this cup, within these prisoning walls 
(Circe returns zvith her wand.) 

Wherein, panther ! your eyes burn through the blind, 
Unfriendly dark : 'tis plain you do not love 
The sunlight ! 
1st Maiden: 

Nor do you the darkness love ! 
{Enter 2nd Maiden, on right, with a torch in either 
hand, which she sets on stands near the front of the 
stage,) 
Ulysses: 

Now haply shall I see you where you hide 
Among the pillars of your blood-red gloom, 
Dreading the daylight as I do not dread 
Your darkness! 
2nd Maiden: 

Honoured guest of Circe's halls, 
Our lady and we all her maidens, bid you 
Behold the secret glories of her shrine. 
The magic of this dim and holy place 
Whereof she is the priestess and the queen. 
With her own wonder-weaving hands she wrought 
These wonders that the light rejoices in! 
Ulysses, still gazing at Circe: 

There is nothing in these halls but only you. 
The heavy-lidded torch-light worships you, 



The Enchantress 47 

The shadow-making flames deHght in you. 

What do you need of magic, when your breath 

And passage is the soul's bewildering? 

But 1 know wherefore I am come, and wherefore 

Your magic and your might dismay not me ! 

(Circe has passed close to Ulysses, going to prepare 

the guest-cup: she does not answer his words.) 
2,rd Maiden, leading him to the stone seat on left 
centre: 

She bids us set you in the sacred seat 
And wishing-place : seated, she will make good 
To the last syllable your heart's desire, 
When, purified both in and outwardly 
By sacred cup and basin, fitly clad 
In her own handiwork, and wheeled about 
By all her tributary powers, your heart, 
Enlarged by all the rites of franchise, makes 
Choice, though it be a new-created world. 
Ulysses: 

Let her restore that she has robbed me of! 
2nd Maiden: 

If that should be your choice — a doubtful one 
To be so set on — 
4//1 Maiden: 

Yet it shall be yours ! 
If the choice hold ye shall not lack of it. 
2nd Maiden: 

Now with her hands the draught she mixes for 
you. 
i.y^ Maiden, bringing a cloak from the chest: 

Her fingers wrought this cloak I clasp about you. 



48 The Adventure 

Ulysses: 

Ay, round my throat! But though her fingers 
wrought it 
Maybe it will not throttle me ! There goes 
My last companion ; pray you treat him well ! 
(She takes his old cloak away. Enter 4th Maiden with 

water and Witch with basin, etc.) 
Ulysses: 

How close you peer at me, mother of men ! 
Perchance you too are seeking someone lost, 
If he should come to you again, disguised. 
IVitch: 

La, we are wondering, stranger, what's this we 
ha' found ; and what will be the merry end for him of 
seeking; and why he must so knit his brows at sight of 
God's fair creatures ! 
Ulysses: 

Come, mother, I am like to be but thoughtful ! 
Witch: 

Come, lad, be merry while you may, and make an 
end of frowning: what better end could a man make? 
(They now leave Ulysses seated alone with Circe, who 

is preparing the potion on the right of the stage.) 
Circe chants: 

Mighty minims whom I stir 
With my chosen juniper, 
Hark, into the ears of ye 
Whisper now the one-and-three 
Messages of mystery — 
(She stoops over the bowl, mumbling four magic 
names. ) 

While they fill you full of fire 



The Enchantress 49 

Fiercer than the heart's desire, 

Your excessive tongues I slake 

With the spittle of a snake, 

And again the words awake: 
{She bends down as before.) 

Now I charge you with the power 

Of mandrake and the poppy-flower: 

Now with terror of the sea 

And its change : of Hecate, 

Hypnos, lord of dreams, and ye — 
( Mumbling again. ) 

In your many-mingled might 

Leap his lips, and with the sleight 

And the magic of my art 

Snatch the purpose from his heart, 

Tear his mortal soul apart! 
{She mumbles.) 

Mighty minims whom I stir 

With this chosen juniper, 

In the secret ears of ye 

I have said the one-and-three 

Syllables of mystery — 

And hear me. Thou, O separating Sea ! 

{Circe approaches Ulysses bearing the bozvl: he starts, 

as though recovering his wits at her approach.) 
Circe: 

Here is the cup : I have spoken into it 
Forgetfulness of the contentious past, 
Freedom from aught that stays and thwarts the hand 
Desire puts forth upon accomplishment. 



50 The Adventure 

And might. 

Ulysses, taking it: 

Your breathing quickened somev/hat in it. 
It is brimful of untamed passion. Ha, 
But I will tame it ! For I too have words. 
Circe: 

Nay, drink according to what rite you will. 

Ulysses: 

Now, ere ever I sup, 
I'll drop into the cup. 
Whether for ill or good. 
This from the witch's wood. 

I wot not will the flower 
Double the potion's power. 
Yet, ere ever I sup 
I'll drop it in the cup. 

'Maybe that it shall quell 
The witch-broth better than well. 
Curdle the milk of it. 
Quicken and clear my wit : 

But, come what will, I vow 
I'll take this hazard now : 
Drop the flower in the cup 
And drink the liquor up. 

(He pours a little of the wine on the ground, rises and 
raises his hand.) 

To you, earth-Mother, stable and sure ! To you 
My fellowship ! I drink to you. Freedom ! 



The Enchantress 51 

Nay, and to you — and let your magic help you 
Now that Ulysses drinks — to you, Circe ! 
{He drinks, and therezvith a weird moaning -fills the 
forest without, and is heard in the halls: Circe fixes 
her eyes upon him: having drunk, he gives back the 
cup, which she replaces on right.) 
Ulysses, sinking into the scat: 

You promised mightily, now mightily 
Shall you fulfil. But I am not a man 
In haste to be content. New Power, though yet 
Obscure, possesses me : a myriad thoughts 
Surge through my brain : my heart is big : I hear 
Afar and far the thunder drawing hither : — 
I sit, and like a pageant all the world 
Goes by me till it come, till with its shout 
It clear the dimness from the dizzy air. 
{Enter the Maidens zvith others veiled: at a sign from 
Circe they form a circle about Ulysses and her: he 
gases before him.) 
Circe, in the centre zvith her zvand: 

We have set you in the sacred seat of choice : 
We have given you the cup fulfilled of might : 
And now with all the shapes that men desire 
We do enwheel you. — 

{The dancers begin to circle slozuly about Ulysses from 
left to right — flickering and evasive lights playing 
over them — their movement presently eddying, 
changing and becoming ever more complex and be- 
zvildering to the onlooker.) 
Circe sings: 

While they dance together, swaying to and fro, 
All the world into their dance begins to flow : 



52 Tiie Adventure 

I have set the mountains free and they go, 
Loosed the sun and moon, the stars also. 
While they dance together, swaying to and fro. 
Dancers sing: 

Whither were ye going that ye would not stay 
Circled by the wonder of delight and delay. 
Till the old wild struggle wear itself away. 
The slack sail sleep, the stupid oars decay — 
Whither were ye going that ye might not stay? 
Strive not any more nor struggle to attain. 
Who is there has gathered fruit of his pain? 
Back into the vague it vanishes again, 
And the surges roar and the toil is vain — 
Strive not any more, nor struggle to attain. 
Only to remain with us is to be wise — 
Ours the mystic caverns where strange dreams arise: 
Ours the silent waters with reveaUng eyes : 
A fire inflames our earth : a passion fills our skies : 
Only to remain with us is to be wise. 
(The great doors open of themselves on the moonlit 
forest.) 

For we weave together in an eddying ring 
All the secret raptures that the poets sing, 
Till your heart itorget that far and futile thing 
That enslaved its spirit unto wandering- 
While we dance together in an eddying ring. 
(Many shadozvy forms entering from the forest now 
weave in among the dancers, each one passing in 
turn near to Ulysses, and holding out her hands to 
him for a moment before fading into the whirling 
throng) : 



The Enchantress 53 

Now into our measure and into our song, 
In and out its footing and its words among, 
'Wildering, comes the murmur of the forest throng 
With a myriad movement and a myriad tongue, 
Weaving through our measure and into our song. 
Now before you all appear and reappear — 
Round you, round about you thronging, near and near. 
Single at the centre of this whirling sphere 
Shall you pluck the flower of that your heart holds dear, 
While the myriad forms appear and reappear. 
{The dancing ceases zvith the song: the silent dancers 
part away from the front of the stage, leaving a 
space about Ulysses; one and another now ap- 
proaches him in turn, while Circe stands with her 
wand on his right: all is in gloom except the dancer 
before him, the wand, Ulysses' face, and the moonlit 
opening of the doors.) 
1st Dancer: 

Surcease from strife and sweet prosperity 
Are mine, O king ! and they await for thee ! 
(Ulysses turns from her.) 
2nd Dancer: 

Ne'er did I miss my quarry by land or sea ! 
Ulysses, hunter ! — I am the mate for thee ! 
( Ulysses turns from her. ) 
^rd Dancer: 

Wanton am I of the shadows, as well may be 
Whose wit is ever awake, as thine for thee ! 
(He turns away.) 
4th Dancer: 

Searcher, Ulysses ! I carry the secret key 
Of Earth, her wisdom, and it is mine for thee ! 



54 The Adventure 

(Circe watches him keenly as he turns away again, af- 
ter a longer pause: the other dancers draw nearer, 
and begin to clamour menacingly.) 

The Dancers: 

Choose, choose — thou that hast drunk of Circe's 
cup! 
Lady, he flaunts us — bid him that he choose — 
The man is ours ! 

Ulysses: 

These are but phantoms. Though 
With voices of insatiate desire 
They clamour for my choice, over them all 
Triumphs the flower of the wood : beckons to aid me 
A blast of spirit, and makes mock of them. 
There was sea-laughter in that mighty cup 
Mixed with the poppy juice — and now I see! 
Nay, set your own eyes on me — lest beholding 
Other too dark insufferable eyes, 
I shout aloud the wild song in my blood ! 
Dancers: 

Choose, choose! 
Ulysses: 

Nay, what are ye to choose from ? What — 
You tusks under a snout — that call you Peace! 
You — Glory — vain dog of the howling pack! — 
You treacherous cat-o'-the-woods with harlot pelt! 
You, snake, sneaking alone among the tombs ! 
Masqueraders — did you suppose your masks 
Would shelter you from me ! Hence, I have chosen. 
{Dismisses them. They draw away, moaning angrily.) 



The Enchantress 55 

Circe: 

What would you ? — Freedom ? That was In the cup : 
Or your companions — but behold, they come ! 
(A gorgeous procession of personages enters from the 

forest.) 
Ulysses: 

Who are ye? 
The Leader: 

Creatures of our Lady's love : 
Her wealth, her power, pleasure, and knowledge all 
Being ours by choice have made us what we are. 
We were your fellows once, Ulysses, whom 
You loved : but she has made us kings and wise. 
O, even as we, Ulysses, choose the lot , | 

Of them she blesses, all their cares gone-by : 
Come and complete again our fellowship. 

(They fawn on him.) jj 

Ulysses: - ^ 

Now these that were my friends are but become 
Baits for my soul's undoing, for my love 
Wills ever to be one again with theirs — 
But never thus ! — Go ! get you hence ! Away ! 
Ye are but men-beasts of contrarious form, 
Till I shall challenge her and set you free. 
(They Hee from before him: the others crowd about 

him, hozvling and clutching at him.) 
Circe: 

Will you not follow, being free to go. 
Before these do you mischief — since your eyes 
Choose none of all? 
Ulysses: 

Nay, it is yours to guard me 



56 The Adventure 

Till you have rendered me my choice : and still 
In your hand you hold what should compel these 

shadows. 
Circe, threateningly: 

One touch of this white wand implacable 
And you, in whom runs the transmuting wine. 
Fluid beneath the human mask you wear, 
Make ansvv^er to its question, and declare 
Yourself irrevocably. 
Ulysses: 

And declare me 
Clean of these falsehoods that beset me still, 
These ghosts that are not what their words declare 

them. 
Why do you hesitate? 
Circe: 

Are you not one 
Of those brave apparitions that the sense 
Adjudges men because they have the shape 
And boast the flesh of more substantial gods, 
But are not? Who, at instance of my touch. 
Prove but as ill-tied faggots, fall apart 
Suddenly, kindhng sticks for any fire. 
Ripe for whatever lust — to perish all 
In the flame and reek of burning, did not I 
Snatch from their wreck somewhat my maidens know 
How to attemper until it become 
Stuff for my loom and song? — Yet if he be not, 
If at this last he be not changeable, 
Crumble not, but stand stedfast, prove himself 
A man — ! 



The Enchantress 57 ^ 

Ulysses: 

Is somewhat lacking that you wait? ' 

Circe: - 

Having seated you upon the ancient seat 

Of franchise, I, Circe, that have the power, i 

Bid you of all these myriad forms of life i 
Take what you will, and be whatso you will — 

Choose ! I 
{The gloom thickens as she strikes him lightly with 

her wand.) j 

Voices: i 

Choose ! Choose ! ! 

Ulysses, rising from the seat: \ 

Ha-ha! ha-ha! — O goodly cup ] 

That fills me full of laughter once again! ; 

The man I am, the thing I will, the choice i 

Holds fast — nor more nor any less. But you — J 

Your touch but loosens out my sword to smite ! | 

He'll see if there be any truth at all : 
'Mid these illusions. — Down, mockers of men ! 

(Vivid Hashes of lightning reveal a gibbering crowd of \ 
hideous beings, beast-headed and gaunt, grovelling \ 
before Ulysses. Only Circe stands robed in her for- 
mer fashion.) '; 
Yea you, kneel down before me ! — For I come \ 
With laughter in my heart, but in my hand 

This mocker of your mocking — leer for leer 1^ 

He gives you! — Shall I smite you with my wand? \ 

Shall I deliver you to Death, and let you ;' 

Wrestle together? Where are all your flook? 1 

{Another ilash shows the hall almost empty.) I 

What, is naught left for you to bargain with j 



58 The Adventure 

If I might sell you life? (Thunder.) Now the sky 

splits ! 
(A roaring storm full of voices.) 
In vain shall you let loose the hurricane, 
It is become my laughter, grown so great 
You cannot ever staunch it ! Answer me, 
Or I will cleave your sullen silence ! Speak ! 
Circe, Hinging her arms about his knees: 

I know you, and I name you with the full 
Title to freedom that my lips have thirsted 
So long to give : for now I hail you, Man ! 
{Ulysses' raised sword falls from his hand. Tense 

silence. Without, the sound of rain passing away.) 
Curtain. 



Act IV 
Cup and Sword ' 

The same scene: the action continues without a ^ 

break. Circe and Ulysses are alone: she is still at his | 

feet, her arms about his knees: his sword lies on the ] 

■floor, his face is pale: a cold, dim light, 
Ulysses: j 

What do you kneeling there and crying to me v 

"Man !" — Am I not Ulysses of the Isles « 

Come hither to compel you render back 

What you have robbed from me? But nov^ you think j 

With one poor, flattering, vain word you can ] 

Cheat me of Freedom ? Or that I will give you 1 

Quittance for your just debt because you play 

The woman to me? You have made promises i 

That hardly could deceive me — let them pass! ] 

I ask no more than I have won of you 

In fair play — and I staked my manhood on it! l 

Circe: 

Nor do I give you less than you have won, 
Crying the word that is become your name — 
Ulysses: 

What! am I not Ulysses? 
Circe: i 

As you will ! 
What would Ulysses? Yonder lies his sword 



60 The Adventure 

And we are undefended and alone: 

Doubtless he can compel and punish us 

If we should fail in anywise, or thwart 

His masterful desire. We are pledged indeed 

To do our woman's most to satisfy him. 

Ulysses, prosaically, at the doors: 

You can but lie ! Even to Death himself 
You offer nothing real ! You are barren 
Of all I seek ! And your ten thousand wiles 
Sicken my heart, even amid its laughter. 
But was there then within that mighty cup 
That brimmed with such a tide of promise — nothing? 
And in your vow of succour, when I saw 
Sudden as in a lightning flash, the power 
That thwarts my purpose of accomplishing, 
And on the flash your promise like the clap 
And oath of thunder — was your promise nothing? 
{Coming back into the hall.) 
Are you indeed without the might you boasted. 
Queen only of illusions, Queen of nothing? 
You proffered me indeed the shapes beneath 
Manhood, seeking to profit by the exchange. 
But when my resolute manhood would not, you 
Had nothing. Have you nothing for me — nothing? 
Circe: 

You have refused my creatures : and myself 
Have laughed to scorn — Circe, the Pitiless. 
{She turns and seats herself left.) 
Ulysses: 

A proud, high name until I bankrupt it : 
A shameful name for any man to speak 
Until I shamed the shamelessness of it: 



Cup and Sword 61 

But now let it be silent! {He paces to and fro.) 

Circe: 

Yet beware, 
Son of the sunlight, in whose human veins 
The strange sea-laughter made its boast against me ! 
I have a name more dread than Circe's name — 
Woman and daughter of the sun am I. 
The Moon I am, and in the thoughts of men 
Fever, that bids them leave the paths of Hfe 
To follow shadows down a shadowy way. 
They look on me, they thirst for things forbid : 
They come to me in their strength, they fall from me 
In weakness, they come to me for delight, 
I take away their substance: all the forest 
Yonder is full of their vain shadowy shades ! 
The Sun my sire, my mother was the Sea. 
Down to her source and spring the daylight pierced : 
The wild sea-darkness gulfed it, and conceived me ! 
O, give him heart that plunges in my whirlpools — 
For none of all the swimmers yet that dared me 
But he went down to Hades ! — Tempt me not, 
Ulysses, with your boasting ! — Pitiless 
My passion as the uncompanioned sea. 
Ulysses, pacing to and fro again: 

Chafe me not with your echoing words, as though 
You whom I know for but a woman — ay 
And, by my manhood, a defeated woman ! — 
Were of the god-kin — {facing her) — Hark'ee! What 

I am 
You know — none better. Am I hero, god? 
No whit ! — I am a man of the same flesh 
As hitherto with your accursed spells 



62 The Adventure 

You have contrived to ruin, — but in me 
Stedfast it proves against your cunning, laughs 
Challenging yours with steel ; until your knees 
Give down, and you cry mercy of a man! 
For all your magic and your mystery 
I will yet have the truth of you — blunt truth! 
Who and whence are you? 
Circe: 

I am of the East. 
My name, you have it. Erst it was the name 
Of one in Colchis where the saffron blows 
With music, and the earth breaks into fire. 
Wed was she, but her spirit was unwed. 
And tumult came of that. Till he that first 
Drank the divine, sweet draught that in her cup 
She wist to mingle was the prince whose bed 
Was bondage to her. And she fled the place. 
Hither across a troubled sea she came. 
Following aye the Sun, and as he sank 
Stayed on this lonely strand. Turning, she slept 
The first night in a mountain cave, and dreamed, 
O such a dream as, like a sudden rock 
Thrusting athwart an onward rushing race 
Of waters, sunders it: and when she awoke 
Came to her the Four Maidens of the isle, 
And hailed her priestess of the Holy Place 
Wherein, unwitting, she had dreamed the dream. 
Ulysses, who has seated himself on the stool by the 
hearth: 

Though truth you tell, you tell it as a tale. 
Circe: 

Did you not bid me tell you such a tale. 



Cup and^Sword 63 

Dreamy, unreal? Nay, of you and me 
When the tale tells it will be such another; 
So strange does the truth seem, the tongue avoids 
Its telling, and the hearer hears instead 
Some strange but less unlikely tale, and thinks 
"Ay, this is truth." So they who took my cup 
And drank its wonder, hid themselves from seeing. 
They never did behold the Form that stands 
Within the shadows of this ancient shrine 
And shares this palace — yea, for we are twain, 
I and this Other. — They that drank the cup 
Saw the gloom fill with kindly dreams, and then 
Escaped into the wood. 
Ulysses: 

But I that drank 
And laughed those kindly dreams to scorn, and stood 
Over you with my sword, demanding Truth 
Of you, O many-worded woman — I 
Still stand unsatisfied, and I will yet 
Have Freedom of you, or I will destroy 
This shrine that stinks of falsehood — and with it 
The scarlet wanton that, in the drunken dream 
Quaffed from her cup, her worshippers adore. 
Circe, scornfully: 

Freedom ! — Do I withhold it ? Peradventure 
You do not know the thing you ask of me. 
Nor how to grasp it, given into your hands — 
Ignorant, held out at a venture — hands 
That know not what it is they close upon 
Unless it be a sword! Nor cannot hear — 
Dull ears! — the emancipating syllable 
They wait for — the true name whose giving sets 



64 The Adventure | 

The hearer free — but still refuse to hear | 

The wonder spoken ! — Who are you that ask i 

For Freedom? — but the splendour that she is 

Is nothing to your passionless, cold blood, 

That quickens not for all her beauty ! No, 

The cup is not between us — but between us 

Is your own stubborn heart! 

Ulysses: 

And it holds fast 
Its errand : and does not forget — howso 1 

Sun-fierce or woman-kind you look on me — I 

Your own hands' handiwork, the deeds' deceit I 

That you shall yet undo — O, you to prate I 

To me of Truth ! . . . •; 

And there is this besides to stand between us, ; 

The sea that I will cross — for I will come j 

To Ithaca, and to her that waits for me. j 

Circe: \ 

You picture still some woman waiting for you i 

As though nor time nor chance could change her 

mood ? j 

Ulysses: I 

Whate'er befall, whether to me or her, \ 

I know that in her heart which cannot change. I 

Myself, I may be but a wandering 
And changeful man, but even also in me 
Somewhat abides, and draweth back to her. 
I have no double mind ; I give myself 
To the day and its adventure ; but for her, 
I know that she abides. 
Circe: 

And doth she stand 



Cup and Sword 65 

Between us — that pale woman? 
Ulysses: 

As the flower 
I put into the draught you mixed for me, 
That kept me whole, who otherwise had been 
Parted among the phantoms of desire — 
So amid these various voices of the world 
That I must heed and answer, she keeps sure 
My purpose, that wins back to her : but else 
She hinders me from nothing. 
Circe: 

Other women 
Are wool to stop the ears of them they love, 
But this is the true comrade — bids you go. 
And brings you home after the journey's done. 
A woman to my heart, and such as she 
Perchance might prove me : bid my lover go. 
Welcome him once again, and then — farewell 
Forever ! — But to her you will come home — 
And so an end of ventures? 
Ulysses: 

There's no end 
To life's adventure save the bourne of Death. 
Circe: 

The bourne of Death! Nay, if you could but 
hear, 
How I would teach you ! I that only know' 
The mystery of Freedom ! But woe, woe ! 
If ever I should speak, or hearing, you 
Should take the peril that was born with me 
And breathes amid my very breath — and woe ! 
If I should never speak it, never you 



66 The Adventure 

Answer and cry the one availing word 
That can redeem me from the curse I bear, 
And set you forth on the great adventure, free ! 
Ulysses: 

Woman, if but your beauty would disdain 
The black, villainous magic, the deceit. 
The treacherous crafts you use — if sun and sea 
Born, your irradiating eyes would shine 
With a clear splendour ! — But instead they mind me 
Of men I have known, defeated and deflowered 
By alien bedfellows, who were the scarlet 
The poppy-flowers of Death. 

{Circe withdrazving to the left front, and Ulysses 
slowly follozving her, they pause in the shadow of a 
pillar. Mocking laughter is heard in the woods zvith- 
out. There enters at the great doors, the Piper, who 
cannot see them: Circe signs to Ulysses to keep 
silence.) 
Piper: 

I am too late ! 
(The mocking sounds seem to enter with him.) 
Though I have broke at last out of the wood 
That held me back from her, she is not here. 
And I, her worshipper — alone of all 
Who sought her, seeking as her slave, her own, 
For no vain hope, nor shameful lust, as they — 
But because only of them all I am 
The prey of Beauty — shall I only then 
Be cheated of beholding Circe's face? 
Circe, in the shadow: 

What would you, that come hither in the night 
Unbidden, breaking thus upon our peace 



Cup and Sword 67 j 

With your unhallowed cry? j 

Piper: ' 

I am a man ^ 

In whom there is but one hope, and it is I 
That he may look upon your face, and feel - ' 

Your eyes devour his living flesh, and be ^^- 
Trampled beneath your terrible white feet, 
Huntress of the enchanted wood! — and die. 
(He kneels before her to kiss her feet.) 

Circe: J 

To-night we are not hunting, nor can hunt ^ 

Dogs nor tame cattle. Fawn not on my feet. ■ 

(She spurns him.) ■ 

Piper: j 

Sorceress ! drive me not, and all unchanged 

Into the wood where manhood is against me ! j 

For all the rest thou changedst : only I I 

Loathing this flesh thou loathest, longing for I 

Thy wine — 1 
Circe: 

Ulysses drained my cup — begone! ! 

Piper: J 

Nay, not Ulysses ! O, my king — not he, 

Ulysses 1 i 

Circe: \ 

Go ! and take my scorn with you ; 

For company in the dim, enchanted wood: ■] 

When the trees mock you, think that it is I. I 
What things soe'er you see under the leaves 

And feel among the shadows, let them be i 
My face, mine eyes, my feet! Ha! let them be — 
Circe for you — begone I 



% 



68 The Adventure 

(She thrusts him out andmockingshapes receive him.) 

Many a night 
Long have we hunted the wild forest through, 
Gushes of hot blood and the threshing rain 
To slake our heats out ! But this night of nights 
We hunt no more. 

{She closes the doors: screaming heard without.) 
Ulysses: 

Is this your womanhood? 
The syllables you speak take terror from you : 
Your curse lights upon him I love ! — And I — 
I have looked on and seen you with your cold, 
Beautiful, horrible, enigmatic smile, 
Breaking his wayward heart. Pitiless woman ! 
I loved him and stood by: and, though I hear 
His cries proclaiming your accomphshed deed 
And calling on my pity and my wrath, 
I go not ! Though I see you, spider-like, 
Crouch in among your webs that you may take 
Whatever freedom-seeking spirit shall 
Try its uncertain wings, entangle it 
And suck its manhood out — I go not! Nay, 
But I do not forget! — My ears are full 
Of cruelty, my eyes of shamefulness. 
My heart of might ! But patient is my will. 
You are Circe, you are pitiless : so be it. 
I did not come to you beseeching pity ; 
I am no lad to snatch at your delights, 
Nor yet a man hasty in wrath. I am come 
Hither upon an errand charged with change : 
And when I answer, it is you shall go, 
With these same magic-making hands to unmake 



Cup and Sword 69 

Yon images of falsehood, and restore 

The manhood you have filched away from them 

To make your webs of — All their filaments 

Are cheated longing, hopes deceived, while they, 

The beings you have ravished, are become 

Incorporate in beastliness, content 

Amid their filth as you amid vanity. 

But you shall give my comrades back to me. 

Come! 

Circe: 

In the dawn it maybe I will come, 
When I have proved your manhood, if it can 
Arouse within me some abysmal joy, 
Some vision that, awaking, will lift up 
A face clear from the enmity and gloom 
These dull and ineffectual things have brought 
About me. 
(Ulysses brings a biasing torch to the loom.) 

Nay! what is it you are doing? 
(The web seems to scream as the -flame catches it.) 
Murderer! — now indeed you are a man. 
Destroyer of beauty, whose delight is in 
Ruin and flame, ravine and rape and sword! 
What life is there in men to equal this 
Wild visionary joy that I had won 
From far before the world, beyond the world! 
But you have slain it — 
Ulysses: 

And I have set free 
Ten thousand spirits from a prison-house! 
They cry, being unaccustomed to be free, 
Being strange and naked in the world again, 



70 The Adventure 

But you shall clothe them. With my hand I have 

Cancelled forever this your hands ill-wrought, 

And now it stands no more between my soul 

And faith in her that wrought it. There remains 

Your part to do, but chiefly you yourself 

To win to it. For I doubt not of your power, 

But whether it be in you to keep faith 

With god or mortal. There's a treacherous dark 

That lurks behind the dazzle of your smiles, 

A black pool underneath the green and gold 

Of the water-liHes. 

Circe: 

You were oft forewarned, 
And now again against myself I warn you : 
Better that you should go; for even in you, 
— When we are nigher yet — shall I not find 
Some flaw, and of a sudden snatch away 
Your manhood, to make good with it the ravage 
It boasted to have wrought? 
Ulysses: 

Nay, I am come, 
Because you are the peril Beauty is, 
The shepherdess of dream and of desire, 
And of whatever more of magic may 
Separate flesh from soul ; because you stand 
Withholding them asunder, till in you 
Our passion and our curse are come to flower: 
Therefore — for now I see a purpose break 
Across my path perplexed — Therefore, not else. 
Am I come hither to demand of you 
That true thing that behind your falsehood shines ; 
Might of your magic, of your peril root, 



Cup and Sword 71 f 

The secret promise hidden in your eyes; j 

That of your darkness you enfranchise me i 

To thread my way through whatsoe'er abyss, j 

Waken up manhood howso wrapt about I 

In dreams, and that no longer you shall be j 

Jealous of manhood nor his enemy. \ 

Circe: ^ 

Ah, now you take the Name, I am no more ^' 

An enemy ! And he is come at last ; 

After these oft-reiterated years ; 

Of empty boasters, rathe false promisers, I 

Vowers of vows unkept that loudly called them - 

Men : for you have this truth they never had \ 

Faith to take with the bright the sullen thing ; 

That shadows it, the labour with the prize. j 

To your undaunted, truth-demanding gaze j 

My secret spirit answers, and I know j 

Through all my being an immortal breath | 
Blow like a clarion from beyond the dark 

Of the Abyss, and triumph through the dark. i 
Ulysses: 

Tell me the secret that is in your flesh. i 

Circe: ■ 

Come, till it tell you. — O, how your eyes blaze ! | 

Ulysses: ^ 

And now your own, O Daughter of the Sun, ■■ 

They challenge! Let me look into the eyes i 

That blazed across our pale, bewildered sight ■ 

Illusions mightier than the timid things '1 

That met them ! Let me look into your eyes | 

That, as a lantern shines onto the wall | 

Visible shadows, so mightily shone i 



72 The Adventure 

Imaginings into the brain, until 

Dazzled, the will forgot itself, forgot 

That Man toward whom it struggled, whom alone 

Its purpose might painfully realise. 

Relinquishing its unaccomplished hope 

To sink bewildered back on the desire 

To which your eyes betrayed it. But I take 

Your gaze and answer it, flash with fierce flash 

And javelin with ruthless javelin, 

Till with the last throe of our struggle pass 

This double curse that covers you and me. 

Poisons your beauty and defeats my will — 

Curse of some sea, whose endless passioning, 

Labour of storm and ever-changing stress. 

Brings no new thing to birth but bitterness! 

Circe: 

I am the priestess of enfranchisement: 
My body is the altar of a flame 
That kindled quenches never : deem not I 
Will quench its burning! 
Ulysses: 

Death, he brings surcease! 
Circe: 

Nay, for the spirit on whose stedfastness 
My wild cup failed, enhancing but his heart, 
Not Death himself can ever quench the fire. 
But the clear flame forever and for aye 
Shall burn in him. 
Ulysses: 

As now the fire of you 
Begins through all the fibre of my flesh 
To burn. I touch you, and there leaps in me — 



Cup and Sword 73 i 

\ 

So charged are you with instancy of life — | 

More than my manhood was ; there wakes in me I 

Some godhood of immortal potency. \ 

Circe: ■'^ 

But you have cursed me for Death's poppy-flower, ^1 

Poisonous, sterile; shall my womanhood ■■ 
Dethrone your manhood and set up instead 

Some other — call it demon, call it god, : 

Yet other — ^and not be your enemy? ,' 

Ulysses: ;■ 

Let a man battle, resolute to the end i 

Against his foe, let every proof be tried: ^ 

But at the end, defeated, let him choose i 

Betwixt Death and his foe, and yield him up ] 

To either as to a friend, and sue for peace. ; 

(He offers her his sword.) o 

Circe: \ 

I take your sword, but you that are a sword i 

I take exulting! — With the morrow's dawn \ 

Your comrades I will render you — and now — • 

{She kisses him on the mouth.) ,i 

Ulysses: ^ 

Was your strange beauty perilous to them '\ 

Who only touched the cup with their lips — to me ' 

Who failed not at the cup's rim, but I took I 

First the wild wine, and now the wilder kiss — ' 

How much more perilous — beyond support — j 

Unless with this delirious dehght, ' 

This myriad-footed, myriad-featured throng i 

That is become my substance, you indue | 
With some transcending and tremendous deed 
My soul, to keep it single in an act 

\ 



74 The Adventure 

That knits together all the whirling throng. 

Circe: 

Then indeed were my boon but bitterness 

If holding in my one hand up to you 

The grape of the god's ecstasy, I held not 

(But hidden still, till all the sweet be shed) 

A sword in the other, to demand of you 

Divine adventure, dread and uttermost, 

For the wild joy's taming. 

(She takes her cup and Ulysses' sword in either hand.) 

Ulysses: 

Give me both your hands ! 

Delight — and the Adventure yet untold! 

(She sets dozvn cup and sword. They embrace: there 
is a moaning through all the woods and halls as they 
move to the left — going out, hand in hand.) 

Curtain. 



Act V 
The Setting-forth 

Early morning. The scene is again in Circe's halls, 
but in another part. The great doors are wide open on 
the right: red sunrise light is streaming in. Trestle- 
tables run between the pillars at the rear, and on the 
left. These are being set for a feast by the Maidens 
of Circe. The great loom is seen on the right front, 
near the door. Enter from the wood, the Piper, hag- 
gard and wild. 
Piper: 

Wine ! Wine ! Wine ! For I perish ! 
^th Maiden: 

You are athirst ere yet the sun is up, 
Though all the woods are drenched in the night's rain ! 
Piper: 

I die of thirst 1 All night I have raved it through 
The woods that are a-drip-drip-drip with blood. 
Someone was hunting there, for all the leaves 
Ran at the lips with massacre ! But I 
Was caught among the shadows till I had 
Fire only in my veins — Give me to drink! 
Wine, that is Mother Earth's red blood — Wine ! Wine ! 
— I am a man accurst 1 
2nd Maiden: 

The curse is on him! 



76 The^Adventure 

The forest fever blazes in his eyes. 
Let the lad drink, he is about to perish. 
{He is served with wine.) 
Piper: 

My eyes are full of seeing that 'tis ill 
To see — eyes, eyes, and eyes under the leaves ! 
She would not give her cup to my dry lips, 
She would not trample on me with her feet : 
But yet for me she took the whole great world, 
Ensorcelled and en-Circe-ed it, until 
Become her body, it encompassed me, 
And would not let me go. 

Her eyes were watching for me in the wood — 
Snakes' eyes, owls' eyes, panthers', ghouls', goblins* 

eyes — 
Peered never-blinking, peered under the leaves. 
I heard hot syllables on icy breaths 
Go hissing by me, bodiless, harmful, nigh. 
Follow me through the shadows, whispering 
Gossip of groves obscure, and cruel sweet 
With strange desire. They whispered till I caught 
After them whispering. My fingers found 
Oozily vanishing bodies. My heart froze, 
But flames filled my coagulated blood. 
They filled the twitching darkness with their hair, 
That flickered, serpent-like, across my face, 
With screams of mockery from the wicked trees. 
If I ran, they ran fleeter : with a swirl 
They thickened the black dark to an eddying flood 
That took me off my earth-forgetting feet 
Along the void. Naked was I, and cold. 
Beneath me leapt the forest like a fire. 



The Setting-forth 11 

My own hands clutched at me : in the lizard-light, 
My flesh stared grinning at me like a corpse. 
Hideous ages I wandered alone. 
4^/i Maiden: 

The night is over and the day, returned, 
Brings respite ; and the wine will give you sleep. 
Piper: 

Let me lie quiet, somewhere, in the cool — 
Somewhere that Circe may not follow me. 
3r(i Maiden: 

Take him to the roof-top: a breeze blows 
there ; 
But of the ladder's narrow path, take heed. 
His head is heavy and his feet unsure : 
Go with him ! 
Piper: 

Pray Circe, she let me be. 
My head, O, my head breaks — have pity on me ! 
{He is led out by the 2nd Maiden, on the left. The 

light grows brighter as the red dies out of it.) 
4th Maiden: 

His part is done : and with his passing fades 
The red of sun-rising — that only hangs 
A few last drops among the pine needles 
And flings a splash upon that naked bough. 
Instead, into the amethystine cup 
Of this new storm-washed day there flows an amber 
Clear, ineflfable morning light, outpoured 
In draughts of joy for some high-venturing thirst. 
^rd Maiden: 

Hark ! I can hear new voices coming hither 
As though, coming, they sang along their way. 



78 The Adventure 

1st Maiden: j 

No song is it: but multitudinous j 

Cheer of the morning — hke a coppice full j 

Of dawn-awakened birds. ] 

4th Maiden: A 

What is it then \ 

Draws hither by the woodway? • 

^rd Maiden: \ 

Circe it is: \ 

And at her side Ulysses : after comes j 

A motley following: the half of them I 

Sorry fellows as those that yestereve j 
Shouted their blind way through the wood: but 

others j 

Goodlier far, about Ulysses throng. 1 

4th Maiden: 1 

See yonder, in the rear of them, how one ] 

Comes by himself, reluctant: with, even now, ' 
His sword bare in his hand. 
1st Maiden: 

And he alone ; 
Joins not with the others when they cry. 
(Sounds of cheering: Voices, ''Ulysses! Ulysses! ^ 

Ulysses of the Isles!") 
yd Maiden: 

It is the Captain that would not come in. j 

4th Maiden: i 

Nor might delay a single one that would, i 

For all his foolish sword. i 

2^rd Maiden: \ 

I wonder now, \ 

Will he come in or will he watch without! J 



The Setting-forth 79 

(Voices, cheering as before: ''Ulysses! Ulysses! 

Ulysses of the Isles!" ji 

Enter Circe, clad in gold, leading in Ulysses. She I 

turns on the portal, and Ulysses signs for silence to I 

those that follow.) ^ 

Circe: ^ 

They hail you as Ulysses ! But these halls \: 

And we, their mistress, cry another title V| 

Warrant and welcome: Man, the Freedom-Winner! | 

Man for whose feet the doors of morning opened | 

And dawn changed what the yesterday had done, 

Because he took the darkness for his bride 

And quickened her anew. And ye that call you 

Companions of Ulysses, Welcome ! He 

Who binds your fellowship together — he 

Who, finding how our hand had scattered it, 

Took then our hand, and bade it gather up 

Those its fingers had plucked out of the bunch 

And knit the bond again about you all : 

He brings you, and with him we welcome you, 

We who are promised to achieve his will. 

Men on steps, shouting as before: 

Ulysses! Ulysses! Ulysses of the Isles! 

Ulysses: 

Comrades. 

Men: 

Ulysses! Ulysses! — Silence! Let us hear him! 

Ulysses: 

Comrades, and chiefly you, in whom this Queen 

With wondrous hands hath wrought a blissful thing 

So that ye seem more gladsome to me now 

Than ever erst : but also all of you 



80 The Adventure 

Whom I deserted, driven, I knew not why 

Up hither against my word and counsel — whom 

Beside the ship I left, and over you 

Many a fear kept watch : Comrades, I bid you 

Here on the sill of this most ancient place 

Kneel down beside me, and do reverence 

Before its Queen. {They all kneel except Captain.) 

Circe, to Ulysses: 

You must not kneel to me. 
Ulysses: 

Have you not kneeled in your own halls to me? 
Circe: 

Nay, for my life I kneeled ! 
Ulysses: 

Now we for ours. 
Circe: 

You have won them all who won your liberty 
And took my peril. Rise ! nay, do not kneel ! 
Yonder's a man that is of mind with me, 
But still he doubts our welcome. 
Ulysses: 

Cousin, cousin, 
Are you the sole among my comrades who 
Is not my comrade? 
Captain: 

Never can my heart 
Consent to honour her! Still it protests 
Her crime of yesterday, and for to-morrow 
Like blossom from the black root prophesies. 
Circe: 

It only needs the sunlight to make sweet 
I' the blossom what was bitter in the root : 



The Setting-forth 81 

Yesterday and to-day are far apart 

When a deed stands between them — and the morrow 

Shall yet stand farther off from yesterday. 

Captain: 

I will not kneel. 
Circe: 

And wherefore should you kneel — 
You that have never drunk my cup or known 
My power, whether to bless you or to curse — ? 
(Captain enters.) 

— Are they all here, that now you may sit down? 
Ulysses, on the left: 

My piper is not here — he that should sit 
Upon my right — because the gift was his 
That brings us to your feast. Where is the lad? 
(The Maidens begin to seat the men duly.) 
2nd Maiden: 

There was one entered wild-eyed from the woods, 
And when he had drunk off three great cups of wine, 
Crying ''My head ! my head !" went hence to sleep. 
Circe: 

'Tis better that the lad should sleep his fill. 
For little did the long night comfort him 
And he hath many a dark league yet to go — 
Whereof we must take counsel presently; 
But while you feast, we will awake the song. 
Ulysses: 

Elpenor's empty seat reproaches me. 
(Circe herself places Ulysses at head of table on left, 
facing right: she then goes over to her loom by the 
doors, and the ist Maiden begins playing on the 



82 The Adventure 

zither: others serve the tables. Ulysses sits wrapped 
in thought.) 
One of the Men: 

Where is the piper ? 
Another: 

Let the piper go! 
Here's peaches, figs and dainties, barley cakes 
Smoking upon the board, flagons of mead, 
Big mugs for a man's thirst, and toothsome dishes 
A-plenty, ay a-plenty even for you. 
Hop-o'-my-thumb ! 
Wine-Carrier: 

There's none of them, not one. 
But beckons to me slily — *'Hop-o'-my-thumb, 
'Twas your dear belly I was waiting for; 
You must make room for me !" Says I, "Dear cates, 
What one man may, and he but a little man. 
That I'll accomplish; and if I should lack 
Capacity, be not dejected, see 
I will commend you to men little worse 
Of hunger than am I." 
Lieutenant: 

Come, then, my hearties ! 
And break your fast, and presently the oars 
Will all pull merrily-o along the way 
To yonder little island that we know ! 
Captain, to Herald: 

Hist ! Mark Ulysses ! and remember how 
Yesterday in the woods, 'twas I that said 
His spirit stoops, down-bent, and laughs no more. 
Mark him., I say, it is all over — man, 
We are fooled! 



The Setting-forth 83 



Herald: ;{ 

And said not I — and now again '\ 

I say it — we shall hear Ulysses' laughter ^ 

Ring out to-day, leading us forth together ! ,! 

{Circe, having prepared her loom, begins rapidly to ,| 

weave a nezv zveh of magic ; she sings as she moves .^ | 

to and fro, and many voices from zvithin and zvith- ,: 

out the halls seem to be blended in that singing.) j\ 

Circe sings: il 

Old Mother Earth, J 

Unsatisfied J 

With her dear children of the wild, ;' 

Longed for the birth \ 

Of one free-eyed, ^j 

One God-communing child : i 

Mightily longed, until 

In the multitudinous gloom | 

Of her deep womb f 

Began I 

The firstling thrill \ 

Of Man. \ 

Singing, our Mother carried him, and after 

Brought forth a thing 

Quick with Her joy: 

Wherefore forever like Her own good laughter 

Echo and ring 

The names She gave the boy: — 

Cephisian Alalcomcnes — 

Idcean, mountain Corybas — 

Cabeiros, heir of ecstasies — 

Pelasgos elder than the moon — 



84 The Adventure 

Adam, Oannes, Garamas, 

Alcyoneus, Diaulos. 

Earth-born, mischievous wight, 

Little impudent brother, 

Spoilt, bad Babe of delight, 

Earth-dandled, 

Unchid you bruised and mishandled 

The cherishing breasts of the Mother : 

Unchid — for in fist and voice 

Puckish eye, Hermes-tassel of you 

A-kick on her knees, the old Dam 

Smilingly knew 

The thing She had missed, free-of-choice, 

I-am-that-I-am. 

Then out of the woods, shaggy fellow, comes Pan: 

From the creatures he brings you a name. 

Fills his huge breast to blow it 

Thundering out from the twin-pipes, but chorded so it 

Issues clear as a flame. 

Crying ''Man." 

Which name ungainsaid 

That the world-piper blew 

Laughs forever about you, wild-wilier! 

A challenge of life ever new, 

A might to make-over-again all the Past that is made. 

Dream fulfiller! 

Born, not bound, of the Earth, 
Wayward comrade, we wonder 
Whither your feet will go! 
Will they seek again down to birth 
By some path of desire, plunging under 



The Setting-forth 85 

The Light and below? 

From the shadow-thronged hollow 

Whom will you call, and whither, ascending 
Out of the dread Abyss? 
— Pipe, for we follow, — 

All, Mother-Earth herself and Pan and the stars, at- 
tending 
Your feet through the fields of bliss! 

(It may nozv be seen that Circe's weaving shozus a 
seated Figure, dark and dread of aspect, before 
zvhom is an exultant youth, piping on a pipe — zvhile 
comrades follozv him, singing and lifting up their 
hands; hands and faces, in rough outline, seem to 
be stretched forzvard in anszver from the gloom be- 
hind the Figure.) 

Ulysses, drearily: 

Has the night passed, and passing, changed so 
little? 

Must you still weave your magic webs, and still 

Sing strange songs to the weaving of them, Circe? 

My heart is weary : I foresee before me 

Parting and a dark, lonely way to tread. 

One of the Men: 

Though strange it was, the singing told a tale 

Of home-coming. 

Captain: 

As when a corpse comes home 

Shall the companions of Ulysses eome. 

"Out of the last Abyss," says she: that's Hades ! 

Friends, shall this woman cheat us even yet? 



86 The Adventure 

Wine-Carrier: 

Go, ask Ulysses ! It's too hard a question 
For the likes of me. Let us go up or down 
I care not, so I journey with Ulysses. 
His wit's enough for me to trust to it. 
Lieutenant: 

Who would not trust Ulysses now? 
Wine-Carrier: 

I'd go to Hades with Ulysses ! 
(Hereupon a clamour arises^ men getting to their feet 

to cry together.) 
Men: 

Ulysses, Ulysses ! We'll follow Ulysses ! 
Though it be down to Hades, we'll followyou,Ulysses! 
Captain: 

What folly is this, wherewith ye tempt your fate? 
Men: 

Ulysses ! Ulysses ! We'll follow Ulysses ! 
Ulysses: 

It may not be, my friends, it may not be ! 
Men: 

Though it be down to Hades, we'll follow you, 
Ulysses ! 
Ulysses: 

Circe, speak to my fellows : let them not 
Deceive themselves ; meseems that I must go 
Alone on this adventure, as alone 
I came to drink the cup. — Speak to them, Circe. 
Circe: 

The way that this man chooses, it may be 
Ye would not choose if ye but knew his choice. 
Herald, after a pause for conference with the others: 



The Setting-forth 87 j 

Lady, we are of one choice with Ulysses; j 

We know that with him goes our happiness, ] 

And whether we must toil or we must suffer -i 

Let it be he that chooses for us all ; ^ 

Elsfe shall we every man wander and go ; 

Innumerable ways ; or we shall run ^ 

Together, as yesternight, into some dream I 

Of folly that seems sweet. But he alone ' 

Sees what we seek^ and we will follow him. j 

Captain: | 

But not if we must perish, following! | 

Herald: \ 

Better to die with him who has counsel rather ^ 

Than to continue, being bereft of him ! I 

Circe: 5 

Hearken, ye comrades whom Ulysses loves — 

These halls are full of voices that ye hear not, ; 

But because yours and theirs assent together ; 

Your cry accomplishes, your choice fulfills. j 

Gloriously have you chosen the adventure ! ; 

The pathway of Ulysses is your pathway. '■ 

For he abides not here. Fain were our heart '■ 

To keep him, but yet for his errand fainer ^ 

Because we know his heart. ■; 

Ulysses: \ 

The way! The way! | 

Circe: I 

Your way leads forth across the violet sea, 

It crosses the grey ocean to its edge j 

And downward then it turns, to the Abyss. 'i 

Wine-Carrier: I 

What's this she says, Ulysses? Does your way | 



88 The Adventure 

Lead downward? 
Ulysses: 

Downward into the Abyss. {Silence.) 

Voices, on right: 

He promised us but now to take us home ! — 
But if not home we will remain together 
Here in these kindly halls ! — We cannot go 
Descending that dread way ! — We cannot go ! 
Voices, in centre: 

If you go, we go! — We are sworn to go. 
A, Maiden: 

Why should you go away and leave us, when 
The forest glades are ample for you all? 
Wine-Carrier: 

O Ithaca, where the goats scramble, where 
Lizards run in the sunbeam and along 
The rocks surges the laughing water ! 
Lieutenant : 

He 
Will take us home: hath he not promised us? 
Captain: 

Ay, this is what it comes to ! This the first 
Fruits of the forest madness, this the faith 
Of yon dark woman ! 
Herald: 

It is not the end 
That we should doubt her! 
Captain: 

There's no thoroughfare: 
Death ends all ways for mortal feet. 
Wine-Carrier: 

Ay, but 



The Setting-forth 89 

Circe herself shall go along with us, 

And by her spells shall bring us back again! 

A Man: \ 

Dread lady, if we must go, go down with us 1 j 

Circe: | 

My place abides. j 

Ulysses: \ 

Wherefore should I go down 1 

Among the dead? What wisdom have they there? \ 

Nay, who of all the dead hath wisdom for \ 

The things of life? Who there can pilot me | 

This ocean of contrary circumstance? i 

What profits the adventure? Or what fruit \ 

May ripen on this plant of darkness — this ] 

Horror that grows within the doors of Death? j 

Circe: ; 

There shall you win counsel I cannot give i 

If you blench not before the last dismay, | 

Neither waste not, for pity of the dead, ,1 

Your life-blood on their thirst, nor yet obey ! 

Their thin wild cries that will insistently i 

Bid you on aHen errands, to divide ' ! 

You from your life. For there awaits you one 
Who, in those shadowy kingdoms, yet retains 

Vision of Earth, because on earth he was ' 

Twi-sexed, man-woman — old Teiresias, ; 

Time's freeman and foreseer. He, across : 

This billowy world of thwarting circumstance, '■• 

Can point the pathway. i 

(Ulysses gases heavily before him.) i 

Captain: I 

Nay, he cannot! See! i 



90 The Adventure 

His head swims at the ledge of the precipice ! 
He dare not set his eyes into the gulf! 
1st Maiden: 

Do you not know your strength ? It was not thus 
You fronted her! You spake not thus to her, 
The pitiless! Is she less dread than Death? 
Captain, mockingly: 

She is not drear as he ! The body shrinks, 
Gibbers, and will not. 
2nd Maiden: 

The indomitable will ! 
2,rd Maiden: 

The laughter of your heart! 
4th Maiden: 

Look up, Ulysses ! 
Captain: 

Numbs at his icy breath : turns toward the sun — 
Refuses ! 
Ulysses: 

And is this the Adventure ; this 
The deed you promised me? O, this is not 
To die, as a man needs must — but to go down 
Alive into that fleshless place — to walk 
Among those shadows, shadowy, returning, 
But thenceforth as a stranger, to my flesh ! 
(Ulysses sitting speechless, the men watch him, hardly 
daring even to zvhisper among themselves. The 
Maidens gather about the doorzvay. Moly appears 
upon the threshold eagerly peering into the hall.) 
Moly: 

Must I go in and seek my playfellow 
Among those heavy brows? — He is not there — 



The Setting-forth 91 j 

\ 

Elsewhere he must be waiting. ] 

4th Maiden: ; 

Whom seek you, ] 
And who are you, sea-stranger? 
Moly: 

Stay me not! (She goes quickly.) > 

Herald: \ 

Lead us, Ulysses : we will go with you. ; 

Lieutenant: \ 

Who are we to desert you now ! { 

Wine-Carrier: i 

Elpenor — ; 
Come, let us call the piper ! He shall lead us 

Forth with a tune together. Ho ! Elpenor ! i 

A Voice zvithout: j 

Ulysses, I will go with you! ^ 

Man next the door: '] 

'Tis he ! ^ ^ ^ ] 
That was the voice of the piper, answering! 

The Voice: \ 

Alas, Ulysses, Ai ! (A scream and thud of fall- \ 
ing.) 

Maiden: ' 

He has fallen down! ! 

(Silence: a sound of merry laughter fading away.) '\ 

Ulysses, springing to the door: > 

I come, comrade ! j 

Ulysses will not fail you ! * 

Captain: \ 

Nay, Death foreruns you : we be all dead men ! j 

(As Ulysses is about to go out he is met by the Witch \ 

entering.) \ 



92 The Adventure 

Witch: 

Ay, ay! Now ye are hot and gallant, but stay, 
hark'ee ! 
Ay, ye shall have my tale : ay, hark'ee ! 
{She comes to the left front, turns, and crouches 
there.) 

As I was a-spinning my fancies under the wall, 
and you dilly-singing within here, up on the roof I 
spies one, tugged from his slumber by the singing, and 
stumbling at the tiles: he comes to the roof-rim, bog- 
gles at it — dives ! — ha-ha — 

Thinks I — a good corpse ready-made — and 
scrambles to my legs to look at it — ay, and to carry 
it I know where, and put it to fine use, a prime young 
carcase ! Ha-ha-ha ! 

I was not slow, but a little young slip of a wench, 
no more than a butterfly, laughter and sea-wrack — 
whisks away something too big for her arms — ''Mine, 
mine !" — I can hear the wench over it, off down the 
sea-way. 

Nothing she left for any to gather of it — cheated 
me of a body that does not come in these parts every 
day. Ha-ha-ha ! 
Ulysses: 

Where did she carry him? 
Witch: 

Go and ask Hades — Ha ! Go and ask Hades — 
Ha-ha-ha! 

{She goes out, left; the men shrink together in hor- 
ror, zvhispering.) 
Captain: 

Hence 1 Hence with me ! ye comrades of Ulysses ! 



The Setting-fbrth 93 

'Tis he, not you, must follow, you, not he. 

Must lead ! i:^or 'tis no longer him you follow, i 

But this dead piper's drunken feet, till all 

Pressing behind upon Ulysses, sink him \ 

So mucn the deeper into riades ! Nay, i 

But you shall see the cunning of the witch, ' \ 

For can your kmg desert a comrade? No! J 

Wherefore she makes the fool cry to Ulysses ; 

Perishing. Or will ye desert Ulysses ? \ 

No — no ! \ 

Men: i 

We will not! 

Captain: ] 

Ye have sworn ye will not! ] 

So shall ye all go down into perdition ! '] 

And I will tell you more ! Fools that ye be, i 

And fools about to perish — for these halls ! 

Are the gate-house of Hades : Portress she : I 

Elpenor is passed in — being most green j 

He goeth first : but this most headstrong man, ; 

My cousin, next, and ye go after him ! ; 

Herald: i 

And who is this that we should follow him? '{ 

We will go with Ulysses, where he goes. J 

But he shall stay with Circe : he shall keep I 

Watch at the gate against we come again ! < 

(The Wine-Carrier laughs boisterously.) I 

Ulysses: ; 

Against we come again! But if he would not j 

No man shall go on this adventure. — Cousin, \ 

Struggle no more to set your fears against ' 
My faith or theirs ! To-day the lot is mine : 



94 The Adventure 

They follow me, to-day; and in my heart 
Echoes the laughter of the Moly-maiden 
Carrying down the pathways we must tread, 
Mixed with the piping of the lad of dreams. 
Now will I take her laughter, take the sound 
Of piping that across the island rings 
Clear as the morning light after the storm. 
Forget this man's vain prudence, fear forget, 
And go on Circe's errand. — For you, Circe, 
Have offered me the prize that is alone 
Worth winning, to go down with all my band, 
Into the dark, and looking in Death's eyes 
Know freedom and possess it — As for him. 
His pipe goes on before us, through the dark 
Blowing blithe venturings ! You sent him on 
That we might follow, carrying sunshine down 
With us to him. Ha ! to beard Hades ! — Ha ! 
Go down to his dread halls and make them ring! 
Till all the dead, out of their stillness, wake, 
And he himself. Dread Terror, shall almost 
Unbend his brow amid our echoing, 
Our many-throated laughter I 
Circe: 

I am leagued 
With Death. None ever loved me but he must 
Take Death with his delight, either to die 
Out of his flesh, and leave it masterless. 
Himself but a bright shadow in my hands — 
Or, by the succour of some Mighty One 
Strengthened, so to transform my magic taken 
Into his frame, that in his blood it may 
Defy even the shadowy touch of Death, 



The Setcing-forth 95 



Win franchise of his mystery-peopled place, 
Breathe lightly that insidious air, commune 
With both the Past and Future. — And to him 
That I have chosen, Death is not the end 
And finish : but, out of that vasty gulf 
As out of lustral waters rising clean. 
Or as the dawn out of the holy dark. 
He shall return : to weary not with time, 
Nor be the thrall of pleasure or of dread 
Henceforward. Now free-hearted, he shall take 
Life in his dauntless hands and fashion it 
According to the vision in his will. 
(She embraces him before thetn all.) 

Ulysses: 

Now out of your embraces are my flesh 
And soul and spirit wrought together anew, 
And quick with might as never in my youth! 
Wherefore upon this morrow of my wonder 
Ere yet its brightness may be overcast, 
I will descend into that acid air 
So potent to dissolve and separate 
Man's hardly gathered manhood, rendering it 
Back to the jealous elements — I will go 
Down into Hades, now while I am strong! 

Circe: 

And now, while I am glad, I bid you go! 
Your purpose plenished with our bridal fare. 
Your eye clear, your heart single, your spirit 
Master of all this splendid multitude 
Gathered anew into the company 
Of its being! 



96 The Adventure 

Herald: 

Who will follow with Ulysses? 
Who with him discover Freedom? 
All the Men: 

We! 
We follow with Ulysses! We go down 
Into the depths untrod, beside Ulysses, 
Seeking for Freedom. 
Ulysses: 

But you, cousin — 
Captain: 

Nay, 
I will not stop alone upon the isle. 
Ulysses: 

Lead forward then, Polites ! And farewell, 
Dread wonder of the beauty of the world 
Become my comrade ! Till I come again — 
Farewell ! 
Circe: 

Farewell ! Stray not apart ! For now I open 
The doors of Death before you, and you go 
To find the secret hidden in Earth's heart. 
(To a sound of piping they move forward, and pass 
out upon the right: as they go, there enters on the 
left and from the front the throng of the forest: 
these group themselves about Circe, upon whom a 
red light falls.) 
Circe: 

They come — and go — and come, with wind and 
tide : 
Change us, and we are changed, and yet abide. 

Curtain. 



THE WANDERER 

AND OTHER POEMS 
By Henry Bryan Binns 

With photogravure after Botticelli. 50 cents net. 
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deep meditation, and the symbols through which he expresses it 
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from a time of conscious aspiration and conscientious revolt, but 
which, somehow, the time markedly fails to produce. . . . 
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most modern poetry lacks is the presence of any inspiring ideal, 
whether it be the ideal implied rather than expressed ... or the 
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Hope Rea in The City. 

New York: B. W. Huebsch. 



THE GREAT 
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By Henry Bryan Binns 



Broivn Boards, $i.oo net. 
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of the gods. ... A Book of 'infinite riches in little room.' " 

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nourishes and stimulates imaginative youth." 

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the passion of nature and humanity." — Observer. 

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been sadly limited within the bounds of rhyming verse." 

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New York: B. W. Huebsch. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

By Henry Bryan Binns 

IVtth photogravure frontispiece and 14 Illustrations. 
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firmly, reasonably, patiently, bravely and wisely, in the flood of 
these controlling events the President steered. The reluctantly 
adopted war measure of the Emancipation Proclamation (hater 
of slavery as Mr. Lincoln was) is the critical action of all his 
actions. . . . And Mr. Binns has not been least happy in his 
analysis of the steps by which this act was reached. ... In 
a broad view, and in the total, he perceives and sets out with 
admirable conmprehension what the struggle really meant — what 
Lincoln's part in it really was." — Neiv York Times. 

"An excellent piece of work." — Daily Neivs. 

"An uncommonly able study." — Tribune. 

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far the best." — G. D. Herron in The Neiv Age. 

"In revealing to us the man with all his weaknesses and 
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has performed a useful service." — Westminster Gazette. 

London: A. C. FIfield, 13 Clifford's Inn, E. C. 

29 and 30 Bedford Street, W. C. 

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